Islamhttp://www.businessinsider.com/category/islam
en-usTue, 03 Mar 2015 15:33:00 -0500Tue, 03 Mar 2015 15:33:00 -0500The latest news on Islam from Business Insiderhttp://static3.businessinsider.com/assets/images/bilogo-250x36-wide-rev.pngBusiness Insiderhttp://www.businessinsider.com
http://www.businessinsider.com/experts-explain-why-isis-is-not-very-islamic-2015-3Experts explain why ISIS is not very Islamichttp://www.businessinsider.com/experts-explain-why-isis-is-not-very-islamic-2015-3
Mon, 02 Mar 2015 09:02:00 -0500Lee Keath and Hamza Hendawi
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54f469646bb3f7c50494bcdc-1200-924/isis-islamic-state-11.jpg" border="0" alt="ISIS Islamic State"></p><p>CAIRO (AP) — Three British schoolgirls believed to have gone to Syria to become "jihadi" brides. Three young men charged in New York with plotting to join the Islamic State group and carry out attacks on American soil. A masked, knife-wielding militant from London who is the face of terror in videos showing Western hostages beheaded.</p>
<p>They are among tens of thousands of Muslims eager to pledge allegiance to the Islamic State group. An estimated 20,000 have streamed into the territory in Iraq and Syria where the group has proclaimed what it calls a "caliphate" ruled by its often brutal version of Islamic law.</p>
<p>But how rooted in Islam is the ideology embraced by this group that has inspired so many to fight and die?</p>
<p>President Barack Obama has insisted the militants behind a brutal campaign of beheadings, kidnappings and enslavement are "not Islamic" and only use a veneer of Islam for their own ends. Obama's critics argue the extremists are intrinsically linked to Islam. Others insist their ideology has little connection to religion.</p>
<p>The group claims for itself the mantle of Islam's earliest years, purporting to recreate the conquests and rule of the Prophet Muhammad and his successors. But in reality its ideology is a virulent vision all its own, one that its adherents have created by plucking selections from centuries of traditions.</p>
<p>The vast majority of Muslim clerics say the group cherry picks what it wants from Islam's holy book, the Quran, and from accounts of Muhammad's actions and sayings, known as the Hadith. It then misinterprets many of these, while ignoring everything in the texts that contradicts those hand-picked selections, these experts say.</p>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54ef163a6bb3f7ac4a86bcc7-729-391/screen shot 2015-02-26 at 7.48.04 am.png" border="0" alt="isis"></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The group's claim to adhere to the prophecy and example of Muhammad helps explain its appeal among young Muslim radicals eager to join its ranks. Much like Nazi Germany evoked a Teutonic past to inspire its followers, Islamic State propaganda almost romantically depicts its holy warriors as re-establishing the caliphate, contending that ideal of Islamic rule can come only through blood and warfare.</span></p>
<p>It maintains its worst brutalities — beheading captives, taking women and girls as sex slaves and burning to death a captured Jordanian pilot — only prove its purity in following what it contends is the prophet's example, a claim that appalls the majority of the world's 1.6 billion Muslims.</p>
<p>Writings by the group's clerics and ideologues and its English-language online magazine, Dabiq, are full of citations from Quranic verses, the Hadith and centuries of interpreters, mostly hard-liners.</p>
<p>But these are often taken far out of context, said Joas Wagemakers, an assistant professor of Islamic Studies at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands, who specializes in Islamic militant thought.</p>
<p>Muslim scholars throughout history have used texts in a "decontextualized way" to suit their purposes, Wagemakers said. But the Islamic State goes "further than any other scholars have done. They represent the extreme," he said.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54d0bb8a69bedd937ff58ec2-1200-800/rtr3wktz.jpg" border="0" alt="ISIS"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">It would be a mistake to conclude the Islamic State group's extremism is the "true Islam" that emerges from the Quran and Hadith, he added.</span></p>
<p>Despite its claim to the contrary, the Islamic State group is largely political, borne out of the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, said Khaled Abou El Fadl, an Islamic law scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles.</p>
<p>The group, he said, is trying to make God "a co-conspirator in a genocidal project."</p>
<p>Ahmed al-Dawoody, an assistant professor at the Institute for Islamic World Studies at Zayed University in Dubai, agreed.</p>
<p>The phenomenon of reading religious sources out of context "has existed throughout the ages," he said. "We should not grant any legitimacy to those who violate Islam, then hijack it and speak on its behalf."</p>
<p>"This is not Islamic terror, this is terror committed by Muslims," he said.</p>
<p>IS not only misreads the texts it cites, most clerics say, it also ignores Quranic verses and a long body of clerical scholarship requiring mercy, preservation of life and protection of innocents, and setting out rules of war — all of which are binding under Islamic Shariah law.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54e48fbd6da8118615bfaec2-850-480/rtr4ppx3.jpg" border="0" alt="isis egypt"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Many mainstream clerics compare the group to the Khawarij, an early sect that was so notorious for "takfir," or declaring other Muslims heretics for even simple sins, that it was rejected by the faith. The Islamic State group denies that, but it draws heavily from 20th-century theories of "takfir" developed by hard-liners.</span></p>
<p>Part of the problem in countering the group's ideology is that moderate clerics have struggled to come up with a cohesive, modern interpretation, especially of the Quranic verses connected to Muhammad's wars with his enemies.</p>
<p>Militants often point to the Quran's ninth sura, or chapter, which includes calls for Muslims to "fight polytheists wherever you find them" and to subdue Christians and Jews until they pay a tax. Moderate clerics counter that these verses are linked to specifics of the time and note other verses that say there is "no force in religion."</p>
<p>And while moderate clerics counter the Islamic State group's interpretation point-by-point, at times they accept the same tenets.</p>
<p>Sheikh Ahmed el-Tayeb — the grand imam of Egypt's Al-Azhar, one of Sunni Islam's most prestigious seats of learning — denounced the burning of the Jordanian pilot as a violation of Islam. But then he called for the perpetrators to be subjected to the same punishment that IS prescribes for those who "wage war on Islam" — crucifixion, death or the amputation of hands and legs.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54e48f536bb3f72e415edc0d-1200-800/rtr2wlkm.jpg" border="0" alt="isis"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This turns the debate into one over who has the authority to determine the "correct" interpretation of Islam's holy texts. Since many of the most prominent clerics in the Middle East are part of state-run institutions, militant supporters dismiss them as compromised and accommodating autocratic rulers.</span></p>
<p>The Islamic State group's segregation of the sexes, imposition of the veil on women, destruction of shrines it considers heretical, hatred of Shiites and condoning of punishments like lashings or worse are accepted by clerics in U.S.-allied Saudi Arabia, who follow the ultraconservative Wahhabi interpretation of Islam.</p>
<p>But IS goes further.</p>
<p>For example, most militaries in the era of Muhammad — the 7th century — beheaded enemies and enslaved populations they captured in war, including taking women as concubines. There are citations in the Hadith of Muhammad or his successors ordering beheadings, and verses in the Quran set out rules for dealing with slaves.</p>
<p>Pivoting off these, the Islamic State group contends that anyone who rejects beheadings or enslavement is not a real Muslim and has been corrupted by modern Western ideas.</p>
<p>One Islamic State cleric, Sheikh Hussein bin Mahmoud, wrote a vehement defense of beheadings after the killing of American journalist James Foley.</p>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54d0baf46da811a27562ab0e-1200-858/rtr46e3q.jpg" border="0" alt="ISIS" style="color: #000000;"></p>
<p>"Those who pervert Islam are not those who cut off the heads of disbelievers and terrorize them," he wrote, "but those who want (Islam) to be like Mandela or Gandhi, with no killing, no fighting, no blood or striking necks."</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Islam, he wrote, is the religion "of battle, of cutting heads, of shedding blood."</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">To support beheadings, the group cites the Quran as calling on Muslims to "strike the necks" of their enemies. But other clerics counter the verse means Muslim fighters should swiftly kill enemies in the heat of battle, and is not a call to execute captives. Moreover, IS ignores the next part of the verse, which says Muslims should set prisoners of war free as an act of charity or for ransom.</span></p>
<p>The Islamic State group "appears to have adopted violent ideas first, then searched books of religious interpretation to find a cover for their actions," said Sheikh Hamadah Nassar, a cleric in the ultraconservative Salafi movement.</p>
<p>In June, the extremists declared a caliphate, or "khilafa" in Arabic, in the lands it controls in Iraq and Syria, with its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as the caliph — a declaration roundly ridiculed by Muslim clerics of all stripes. But here too, the group went further, saying that Islam requires the existence of a caliphate and anyone who refuses to recognize its declaration is not a true Muslim.</p>
<p>"The hopes of khilafa became an undeniable reality," the group proclaimed in its online magazine, Dabiq. Any Muslim who refuses IS authority will be "dealt with by the decisive law of Allah."</p>
<p>After that, the stream of IS recruits swelled by thousands.</p>
<p>___</p>
<p>AP Religion Writer Rachel Zoll contributed to this report.</p>
<div class="nc_footer">
<p>Copyright (2015) Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.</p>
</div>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>This article was written by Lee Keath and Hamza Hendawi from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/experts-explain-why-isis-is-not-very-islamic-2015-3#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iphone-headphones-tricks-2015-2">14 things you didn't know your iPhone headphones could do</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/report-shooting-at-free-speech-event-in-copenhagen-2015-2One dead after shooting at Copenhagen cafe attended by cartoonist who drew the Prophet Mohammad as a doghttp://www.businessinsider.com/report-shooting-at-free-speech-event-in-copenhagen-2015-2
Sat, 14 Feb 2015 11:01:00 -0500Christina Sterbenz, Shane Ferro and Natasha Bertrand
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54df8e6969bedd435acd86c8-600-/copenhagen-shooting-1.jpg" border="0" alt="copenhagen shooting" width="600">Shots were fired Saturday <span>during a meeting about free speech&nbsp;</span>at a cafe in Copenhagen killing one civilian and wounding three police, <a href="https://twitter.com/guan/status/566624133682053120">Danish media is reporting</a>.</span></p>
<p>The space,&nbsp;Krudttoenden cafe, was hosting an event titled "Art, blasphemy and freedom of expression," organized by controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks, according to the <a href="http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4b7df13ebb9b4858a1d4a4cbcc289d35/reports-shots-fired-copenhagen-cafe-free-speech-event">Associated Press</a>. He was not hit.&nbsp;<span><br></span></p>
<p>The French ambassador to Denmark was apparently at the event as well and tweeted that he survived the situation.&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>Still alive in the room</p>
— Frankrigs ambassadør (@francedk) <a href="https://twitter.com/francedk/status/566612886253240320">February 14, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Magnus Bjerg, a reporter with Danish station TV2, one of the outlets reporting the shooting, tweeted a picture of what appears to be a glass window riddled with bullets.</span></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>Bedre foto af skudhullerne i glasdørene til "Krudttønden", hvor tre betjente blev ramt af skud <a href="http://t.co/vVGLEchOW7">pic.twitter.com/vVGLEchOW7</a></p>
— Magnus Bjerg (@MagnusBjerg) <a href="https://twitter.com/MagnusBjerg/status/566625419852775424">February 14, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>
<p><span>"I heard someone firing with an automatic weapons and someone shouting," Niels Ivar Larsen, one of the speakers at the event, told the AP. "</span><span>Police returned the fire and I hid behind the bar. I felt surreal, like in a movie."</span></p>
<p>Copenhagen police confirmed a <a href="http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/krimi/2015-02-14-live-attentatforsoeg-mod-muhammed-tegner-flugtbil-fundet">40-year-old civilian is dead</a>, and three police officers were wounded.</p>
<p>Originally, police thought two male assailants were at large, but witness interviews since have suggested there was only one gunman, according to Reuters. &nbsp;A getaway car, a black Volkswagen Polo, has been found, <a href="http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/krimi/2015-02-14-live-attentatforsoeg-mod-muhammed-tegner-flugtbil-fundet">TV2 is reporting</a>, and police have issued a photo of the alleged shooter.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Police said the shooting was specifically aimed at Vilks, and Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has officially labeled it a terrorist attack.</p>
<p>"We feel certain now that it was a politically motivated attack, and thereby it was a terrorist attack, in which one civilian was killed and three policemen were wounded," she told reporters, according to <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/14/us-denmark-shooting-primeminister-idUSKBN0LI0TJ20150214">Reuters</a>. "We are on high alert all over the country."</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54df8457eab8ea1d1b191dad-678-450/screen shot 2015-02-14 at 12.18.42 pm.png" border="0" alt="Screen Shot 2015 02 14 at 12.18.42 PM" style="color: #000000;"></p>
<p>The artist stirred controversy when he drew the Prophet Mohammad as a dog (shown right). Sweden had recently&nbsp;<a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/07/france-shooting-sweden-artist-idUSL6N0UM36L20150107">tightened security</a> around him after 17 people were killed as a result of the terrorist attack on satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris.&nbsp;</p>
<p>After a Swedish magazine published Vilks' drawing in 2007, al-Qaeda in Iraq put a $100,000 bounty on his head, forcing Vilks to go into hiding, the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/37089242/ns/world_news-europe/t/muhammad-cartoonist-attacked-during-lecture/#.VN-Di1tH1E4">Associated Press</a> reported.</p>
<p>Vilks' cartoons also motivated, in part, the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/terrorism-in-the-uk/8198043/Sweden-suicide-bomber-Taimur-Abdulwahab-al-Abdaly-was-living-in-Britain.html">first suicide bombing</a> in Sweden's history in 2010.&nbsp;That same year, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/seven-held-in-ireland-over-plot-to-assassinate-cartoonist-lars-vilks-1918672.html">seven Muslims were arrested</a> in Ireland over an alleged plot to assassinate him.</p>
<p>Vilks was also assaulted in 2010 while giving a lecture at <span>Uppsala University. He showed the 250 attendees a "provocative film with sexual content" when one man ran up and punched him repeatedly.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span>This video shows the aftermath of the attacks on Vilks inside the lecture hall:</span></p>
<p><iframe width="750" height="500" frameborder="0" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lQQAWrIvBoI"></iframe><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">While many Muslims had been protesting peacefully outside of the university, police had to hold off angry demonstrators shouting "God is great!" in Arabic with pepper spray as Vilks was escorted out of the lecture hall.&nbsp;</span></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/report-shooting-at-free-speech-event-in-copenhagen-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/taiwan-navy-stealth-missile-warship-corvette-2014-12">The Taiwan Navy Just Unveiled A Stealth Missile Warship Dubbed The 'Carrier-Killer'</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-influence-on-saudi-arabias-doorstep-2015-2Iran now has a window of influence on Saudi Arabia's doorstephttp://www.businessinsider.com/iran-influence-on-saudi-arabias-doorstep-2015-2
Mon, 09 Feb 2015 10:31:39 -0500Mehdi Khalaji
<div>
<div class="abstract">
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54772a51eab8ea3e6b81e705-1200-924/ayatollah-ali-khamenei-11.jpg" border="0" alt="Ayatollah Ali Khamenei">The receptiveness that many Zaidi leaders have shown toward Iran's foreign policy and religious practice give Tehran a ready means to expand its reach in Yemen.</p>
</div>
<p>The Houthi coup and other recent developments in Yemen have raised many questions about the country's religious fabric, especially the relationship between its large Zaidi community and Twelver Shia Islam, the main religion of Iran.</p>
<p>The complex links connecting the two religious traditions have significant implications for the Houthis' internal politics, as well as their relations with Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah, and other Shiite entities in the Middle East.</p>
<h3><strong>An old Shiite branch of Islam</strong></h3>
<p>Unlike the majority of Muslims, who believe that Ali is the fourth caliph (successor) of the Prophet Muhammad, Shiites regard Ali as the first legitimate caliph and believe that his sons should have succeeded him.</p>
<p>After Ali was assassinated in the seventh century, the Umayyad Dynasty arose and separated religious authority from political authority. That was not acceptable to his followers, the Shiites, who believed that rulers should be appointed by the Prophet or his successors and hold the highest spiritual qualifications.</p>
<p>In the early eighth century -- after the death of the fourth Shiite Imam (spiritual guide/political leader) Ali Ibn Hussein, not to be confused with the first Imam Ali -- Shiites began to splinter over succession.</p>
<p>The faction known as the Zaidis chose Ali's son Zaid as the fifth Imam. Another faction -- who went on to become the Twelver Shiites, so named because they believe there are twelve Imams in all -- chose Ali's other son, Muhammad.<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54c557eaecad04ec0b5a604b-1200-800/rtr4mngp.jpg" border="0" alt="houthi yemen" style="color: #000000;"></p>
<p>One of the main reasons behind this split was that the Zaidis firmly believed that Shiites should rise up against the Umayyad Dynasty and take revenge for the Battle of Karbala, the late seventh-century clash in which the third Shiite Imam Hussein had been killed.</p>
<p>In contrast, the followers of Imam Muhammad believed that Umayyad suppression had made Shiites too vulnerable, so they needed to reorganize and work to empower the community until the day when the Mahdi (savior) would come and take revenge for Hussein by God's will.</p>
<p>After that schism, jihad and war against unjust rulers became an essential ingredient of belief for the Zaidis, who criticized Imam Muhammad and his followers for inaction against the Umayyad caliphs. Zaid rose up against the Umayyad ruler of the time and was killed in battle, becoming the martyr par excellence for Zaidis after Hussein. In essence, rebellion against unjust rulers became one of the central Zaidi qualifications for any legitimate political-spiritual leader.</p>
<p>The followers of Zaid and Muhammad gradually developed two distinct theological and juridical schools. At the same time, many Zaidis and Twelver Shiites left Medina and immigrated to Iran. In 897, a Zaidi named Yahya bin Hussein left Medina for Yemen, calling himself "Hadi" (the guide) and claiming to be an Imam.</p>
<p>Like Zaid, he asserted that it was a religious duty to rise up against injustice, and that only a rebellious leader could be an Imam. Zaidis hold that Imams assume the position by consensus of the community's <em>ulama</em> (religious scholars), who in this case recognized Yahya bin Hussein's claim.</p>
<p>By contrast, Twelver Shiites believe that one becomes Imam only by explicit appointment of the Prophet or previous Imam. Another divergence between the two approaches is that Zaidi jurisprudence is very close to two Sunni schools of Islamic law, the Hanafi and Shafi'i, which are significantly different from the Twelver Shiite school.</p>
<h3><strong>Overthrowing unjust rulers<img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/543d35166bb3f7075182c882-1200-600/houthi-shiite-shia-in-sanaa-yemen.jpg" border="0" alt="Houthi Shiite Shia in Sanaa Yemen"> </strong></h3>
<p>Despite ongoing persecution and imprisonment, none of the Twelver Imams after Hussein rose up against the political establishment. The traditional Twelver view continued to hold that establishing a religiously legitimate government should be postponed until the Mahdi's return.</p>
<p>This view persisted during the Safavid dynasty, which established Shia Islam as the official religion of the area that would become modern Iran. Rather than agitating for a theocracy during this period, the Shiite <em>ulama</em> continued to recognize the monarchy's legitimacy.</p>
<p>As late as the mid-twentieth century, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini himself wrote that "no Shiite jurist has said or wrote so far that we are the king or that the &nbsp;monarchy is our right...they never opposed the [political establishment] and never meant to subvert the government" (from his 1944 book <em>Kashfol Asrar, </em>or "Revelation of Secrets").</p>
<p>A decade later, however, Khomeini drastically changed his view and developed the principle of <em>velayat-e faqih,</em> which entails that only a Shiite jurist has the religious right to rule the country. Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution, led by a Twelver Shiite jurist, was a theological surprise for Zaidis in Yemen because they had believed that such uprisings were what differentiated them from Twelvers.</p>
<p>Subsequently, the Twelver branch became so appealing to Yemeni Shiites that many of them traveled to Iran to learn more about it, often at the Islamic Republic's invitation. In many cases they were attracted by Iran's foreign policy, particularly the regime's resistance against Israel via proxies such as Hezbollah.</p>
<p>Although the exact number of Twelver Shiites in Yemen today is unknown, unofficial sources indicate that they constitute more than 10 percent of the population. Because the former government led by Ali Saleh often accused rebellious Yemenis of leaving Zaidism and subordinating themselves to Iran, openly identifying as a Twelver was long considered dangerous.</p>
<p>Today, many Yemeni Twelvers still dissemble about their adherence to that school, following the doctrine of <em>taqiyya</em>, or religiously permissible dissemblance. Yet in a 2010 interview with the author, Morteza Mohatwari, a leading Zaidi cleric who runs a seminary in Sana, stated that very little now separates Twelvers from Zaidis in terms of their political theology (as opposed to their styles of jurisprudence, which remain different).</p>
<p>In his view, Zaidis who "convert" actually believe that the Iranian regime's version of Twelver Shiism is the true Zaidism because it mobilizes the masses to confront foreign powers and unjust rulers.</p>
<h3><strong>Houthis and the Islamic republic</strong></h3>
<p>In recent decades, Sadah, an historically Zaidi region in north Yemen, has rejuvenated its seminaries and religious institutions.</p>
<p>Beginning in 1990, two Zaidi figures from this region -- Badr al-Din al-Houthi and his son Hussein, the leaders of the al-Haq (Right/Truth) Party -- came to prominence as the main ideologues of a religio-political movement whose followers have become known as Houthis. In 1992, Hussein founded the group al-Shabab al-Momen (“Young believers," also known as the Ansar Allah Movement) to fight the government.<img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5422ee7f6da811cf64d652ed-1200-600/houthi-rebels-yemen-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Houthi Rebels Yemen"></p>
<p>Although both men have since died, the Houthi movement still bears their ideological imprint. In their publications, speeches, and seminars, Badr and Hussein showed obvious sympathy toward Twelver Shiism and Khomeini's revolutionary anti-American agenda.</p>
<p>Hussein believed that the main conflict in Yemen is between Zaidis and Wahhabis; as he stated in remarks directed at the government sometime after the United States began providing counterterrorism assistance to Sana, "These are terrorists that you did not allow us to fight against; you stand behind them, and at the same time you let Americans come to Yemen under the pretext of fighting them."</p>
<p>In addition, he was fascinated by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah; in one undated speech he asked the audience, "Did any of you see Hassan Nasrallah on the TV shaking Israel by his powerful words?" He also publicly praised Khomeini for his confrontational attitude toward the United States and Israel.</p>
<p>In remarks criticizing Yemenis for not participating in one of the annual demonstrations that Iran organizes in Mecca during the Hajj, he said, "Imam Khomeini has understood Hajj in its Quranic sense...Therefore, he guided Iranians to shout against America, pagans, and Israel." In broader terms, he repeatedly criticized not only Yemenis, but also Arabs in general for not choosing Khomeini as an example for political leadership.</p>
<p>Al-Haq's current leader, Hassan Zaid, is close to Hezbollah as well -- a link at least partly explained by the fact that one of his three wives is a Lebanese woman who runs his office and manages his international relations. In a recent interview with the author he said, "We believe that Khomeini was a true Zaidi. Theologically our differences with Hezbollah and the Iranian government are minor, but politically we are identical."</p>
<p>According to the aforementioned Zaidi cleric Morteza Mohatwari, Iran's government and clerical institutions -- including those affiliated with leading Shiite clerics Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and Javad Shahristani in Qom -- provide religious training and educational tools to Yemenis in both countries.</p>
<p>During a trip to Iran last month, Mohatwari asked for financial and educational support from the University of Religions and Denominations, an organization created thirteen years ago under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's supervision to train non-Twelver Shiites and Twelvers who want to study other branches of Islam.</p>
<p>A few weeks prior, Iran had invited Mohatwari and seventy other Yemeni Zaidi leaders to visit the shrine of Nasr al-Haq, a ninth-century Zaidi Imam, in northern Iran. Khamenei had ordered the shrine's renovation to reinforce the ties between Yemen and Iran, according to remarks made in 2014 by Sattar Alizadeh, head of the Endowment and Charity Organization of Mazandaran province.<img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54bfa2c5ecad044c630e0b72-1200-750/rtr4lzny.jpg" border="0" alt="Houthi fighter"></p>
<p>When Mohatwari visited the shrine last October, he said, "Having relations with Iran's Supreme Leader is an honor for Yemen...Now we know him more than Nasr al-Haq."</p>
<p>The connection between Yemen and Iran was further emphasized in an important interview aired on January 27 by Fars News Agency, an outlet affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.</p>
<p>During the discussion, Abdul Majid al-Houthi -- Badr al-Din's cousin and leader of the Ansar Allah Movement, which is now the official name for the overall Houthi movement -- declared the following:</p>
<p>"Ansar Allah expects the Islamic Republic of Iran and other countries to support them and the Yemeni people...The revolution in Yemen...is inspired by the Islamic Revolution in Iran...but the intellectual and historical roots of revolution in Yemen stem from the fact that Yemenis are Zaidis and have more political experience than the Islamic Republic. From Ali's son, Imam Zaid up to now, Zaidis have witnessed many revolutions against unjust rulers."</p>
<h3><strong>Implications fo Iranian policy</strong></h3>
<p>The Iranian regime's regional policy is not purely sectarian.</p>
<p>In his address to the attendees of the January 9 Islamic Unity Conference in Tehran, Ayatollah Khamenei stated, "The Islamic Republic's assistance to its Muslim brothers has mostly been given to Sunnis. We have stood beside the Palestinians. We have helped Hamas and Islamic Jihad and will continue to help" (interestingly, the last sentence was deleted from the transcription of the speech on Khamenei's official website).</p>
<p>In general this seems to be true -- Iran tends to conduct its foreign policy based on ideology, not theology. But this does not prevent the regime from using Shiism as a soft-power tool or mobilizing Shiites in the Middle East to threaten the West's interests and allies.</p>
<p>The receptiveness that many Zaidi leaders have shown toward Iran's foreign policy and its practice of Twelver Shiism gives Tehran a ready means to expand its influence in Yemen.</p>
<p><em>Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute, trained in the seminaries of Qom from 1986 to 2000.</em></p>
</div><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-backed-rebels-in-yemen-just-dissolved-parliament-and-took-over-2015-2" >Iran-backed rebels in Yemen just dissolved parliament and took over</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/iran-influence-on-saudi-arabias-doorstep-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/flying-car-aeromobil-flies-430-miles-2014-12">This Flying Car Is Real And It Can Fly 430 Miles On A Full Tank</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-freaking-out-after-obama-compared-isis-to-the-crusades-2015-2People are freaking out after Obama compared ISIS to the Crusadeshttp://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-freaking-out-after-obama-compared-isis-to-the-crusades-2015-2
Fri, 06 Feb 2015 12:05:00 -0500Colin Campbell
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54d4d443ecad04105ffbf74f-600-/ap291247661156-1.jpg" border="0" alt="AP291247661156" width="600"></p><p></p>
<p>President Barack Obama caused a wave of backlash after he <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-people-committed-terrible-deeds-in-the-name-of-christ-2015-2">compared</a> the actions of Islamic State jihadists in the Middle East to acts of violence committed by Christian crusaders centuries ago.</p>
<p>"It's unbelievable," MSNBC host Joe Scarborough <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/joe--obamas-prayer-speech-baffling-395029571633">said Friday</a>. "The stupid, left-wing moral equivalency. Sometimes you can just say, 'Hey, you know what? There are some really, really bad Muslim extremists.'"</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Scarborough's "Morning Joe" cohost, Mika Brzezinski, appeared too exasperated by the president's comments to even engage them.</p>
<p>"Could you put some vodka in here?" she joked while raising her coffee cup.&nbsp;</p>
<p>At the Washington Prayer Breakfast the day before, Obama noted that&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-people-committed-terrible-deeds-in-the-name-of-christ-2015-2">all religions had violent histories</a>. Notably, he equated the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) militants in the Middle East to the medieval-era Christian Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition that targeted non-believers.</p>
<p>"Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ," Obama said. "And in our home country, slavery, and Jim Crow, all too often was justified in the name of Christ."&nbsp;</p>
<p>Conservatives expressed particular outrage at the remarks. Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore (R)&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/us/politics/obama-national-prayer-breakfast-terrorism-islam.html">told The New York Times</a>&nbsp;Obama's statement was "the most offensive I've ever heard a president make in my lifetime." And Fox News devoted segment after segment to discussing Obama's speech.</p>
<p>"This man is a nihilist and an narcissist and an extremist," conservative talk-show host Mark Levin <a href="http://video.foxnews.com/v/4035141788001/mark-levin-says-obama-is-stuck-in-his-own-ideology-/?playlist_id=930909813001">told</a> Fox's Sean Hannity.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Levin argued that, if former President Abraham Lincoln had taken Obama's approach, he might have let slavery continue in the US.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"Lincoln would say, following Obama's argument, 'Don't get on your high horse. This is not an existential threat,'" Levin continued.&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"Lincoln might say, 'Why in the world would I send hundreds of thousands of men to their death to end slavery?' What Obama is saying and doing is the lowest of the low."&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Also <a href="http://video.foxnews.com/v/4035472073001/krauthammer-blasts-obamas-prayer-breakfast-remarks/?playlist_id=930909813001">on Hannity's show</a>, columnist Charles Krauthammer said Obama's speech was even more offensive because the Islamic State recently released a propaganda video in which militants burned a Jordanian hostage alive.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">"I was stunned that the president could say something so — at once — both banal and offensive," Krauthammer said. "Here we are not two days of way from an act of sort of shocking barbarism: the burning alive of a prisoner of war. And Obama's message is that we should remember the Crusades and the Inquisition ... Everyone knows that. What's important is what's happening now."</span></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-freaking-out-after-obama-compared-isis-to-the-crusades-2015-2#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> <p>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/boys-asked-to-hit-a-girl-video-2015-1">What Happened When A Bunch Of Young Boys Were Told To Hit A Girl</a></p> http://uk.businessinsider.com/transferwises-similarities-to-hawala-2015-1London's hottest new finance startup is identical to an ingenious ancient Islamic banking systemhttp://uk.businessinsider.com/transferwises-similarities-to-hawala-2015-1
Sat, 31 Jan 2015 09:57:00 -0500Rob Price
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54c68658dd08950d4a8b45a2-1200-924/islamic-architecture-middle-east-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Islamic architecture middle east"></p><p>TransferWise is the hottest tech property in London right now. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/transferwise-58-million-andreessen-horowitz-2015-1">The finance startup has raised $58 million on a rumoured valuation of almost $1 billion</a> off the back of its ingenious way to transfer money overseas with almost no fees.</p>
<p>It does this by not actually transferring money across borders — instead, it matches up payments with those going the opposite direction. So "your" money never actually leaves the country — it's just rerouted to someone who's being sent a similar amount by someone overseas. Your foreign recipient, meanwhile, receives their funds from someone trying to send money out of their own country.</p>
<p>The beauty of TransferWise is that despite its complexity, its users never have to worry about these peer-to-peer details. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-transferwise-works-2015-1">Their money just transfers quickly and cheaply, at the click of a button</a>.</p>
<p>It's all powered by highly sophisticated back-end software, but despite this, the underpinning concept isn't new. In fact, <a href="https://twitter.com/Michael_Levitis/status/559767485910896640">as Michael Levitis pointed out to me on Twitter</a>, it bears remarkable similarities to an ancient Islamic money transfer system called <em>Hawala</em>. (It's a comparison <a href="http://qz.com/84388/facebooks-first-funder-just-put-his-money-into-a-start-up-thats-a-lot-like-an-ancient-islamic-money-transfer-system/">also made by Quartz</a>.)</p>
<p>Much like TransferWise, Hawala sidesteps the headache of actually transferring goods across borders (something even more difficult when you're dealing with gold or physical assets hundreds of years ago). Instead, there's a network of brokers, or Hawaladars, who are based in all of the possible recipient locations. A customer might go to the Hawaladar in the first city, agree to transfer funds, and be given a password. When the recipient in the second city uses that password, funds are given to them from the second Hawaladar's cache. The funds paid to the first Hawaladar, meanwhile, remain with him, until a transfer in the opposite direction releases them.</p>
<p>The Hawala system has been used to bypass the US trade embargo of Iran, <a href="http://www.gsnmagazine.com/article/23515/ny_man_given_light_sentence_iranian_money_launderi">Government Security News reports</a>. It's not clear what would happen if a customer used TransferWise were used to avoid an embargo in a similar incident.</p>
<p>So while TransferWise's solution to the age-old problem of international money transfer is an innovative one, it's definitely not a new one. It just goes to show — the old ideas are often the best ones.</p><p><a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/transferwises-similarities-to-hawala-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/michelle-obamas-headscarf-controversy-is-absurd-2015-1The Michelle Obama Headscarf Controversy Is Absurdhttp://www.businessinsider.com/michelle-obamas-headscarf-controversy-is-absurd-2015-1
Wed, 28 Jan 2015 12:01:00 -0500Colin Campbell
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54c9026c6da811f42de22f15-600-/ap944638841555-1.jpg" border="0" alt="AP944638841555" width="600"></p><p>First lady Michelle Obama sparked a worldwide controversy this week when she did not don an Islamic headscarf in Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>Obama was part of a delegation that <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/obama-is-cutting-his-india-trip-short-to-visit-saudi-arabia-2015-1">visited Saudi Arabia Tuesday</a> to pay respects after the death of King Abdullah. According <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/michelle-obama-navigates-limits-women-saudi-arabia-192549108.html">to the Associated Press</a>, headscarves are required for women by Saudi law, but there is an exemption for foreigners. </p>
<p>The fashion choice is being widely interpreted as a huge statement against sexist laws in Saudi Arabia. </p>
<p>"DEFIANT MICHELLE REFUSES TO WRAP," blared a headline about the story on The Drudge Report's banner.</p>
<p>"Michelle Obama sends message without headscarf in Saudi Arabia," MSNBC <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/first-ladys-scarfless-move-saudi-arabia-was-symbolic">declared</a>.</p>
<p>However, this firestorm appears to be overblown. </p>
<p>Some Saudis were apparently shocked by her decision. More than 1,000 tweets were <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/michelle-obama-saudi-arabia-head-covering-criticism-114646.html">reportedly</a> sent using an Arabic hashtag that roughly translates to "#Michelle_Obama_Immodest" or "#Michelle_Obama_NotVeiled." But, according <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-31019565">to BBC News,</a> a large percentage of those tweets were actually making fun of, or criticizing, the Saudi tradition.</p>
<p>More importantly, Obama is hardly the first prominent female US representative who did not cover her hair while visiting the country. As CNN's Chris Moody <a href="https://twitter.com/moody/status/560455214017576960">pointed out on Twitter</a>, Laura Bush, then the first lady, and two secretaries of state — Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice — also went to Saudi Arabia without wearing a headscarf or veil. Additionally, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-California) has done the same.</p>
<p>In coverage of the flap, The Washington Post and other outlets <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/01/28/make-no-mistake-michelle-obama-just-made-a-bold-political-statement-in-saudi-arabia/">noted</a> the first lady wore a headscarf while visiting another Muslim country, Indonesia. However, based <a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Indonesia-Obama-Asia/b40e9edd96a54e129724851b852c9519/10/0">on Associated Press photos</a>, that clothing decision appears to have been in the context of visiting a mosque. Other pictures of Obama in Indonesia <a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Indonesia-Obama-Asia/4ab63eeaaadb4e968e55f40e9a97eb9e/38/0">show her head was uncovered</a> during the other parts of the trip.</p>
<p>Here are some photos of other female US dignitaries who went scarf-free in Saudi Arabia:</p>
<h3>Laura Bush, then the first lady, visiting Saudi Arabia in 2007:</h3>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54c908946bb3f77a49621f98-1200-924/ap07102309096-1.jpg" border="0" alt="AP07102309096"></p>
<h3>Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal at the Riyadh airport in 2010:</h3>
<p><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54c90930eab8ea64069f539d-1200-924/ap1002151973-1.jpg" border="0" alt="AP1002151973"></p>
<h3>Then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice with the same foreign minister in 2007:</h3>
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54c909bc69bedd8c3313dda1-1200-924/ap070731020718-1.jpg" border="0" alt="AP070731020718"></p>
<h3>Then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi was welcomed by Sheik Saleh bin Humaid, the head of Saudi consultative council and Imam of Mecca's great mosque, in 2007:</h3>
<p><img src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54c90aca6bb3f76552621f98-1200-924/ap07040507472-1.jpg" border="0" alt="AP07040507472"></p>
<h3><strong><br>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cooper-hefner-relationships-dad-hugh-playboy-2015-1">Hugh Hefner's Son Has A Surprising And Inspiring Attitude Toward Women</a></strong></h3>
<div><div>
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<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span></p>
<h3><strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/cooper-hefner-relationships-dad-hugh-playboy-2015-1"></a></strong></h3><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-young-saudi-prince-could-become-his-countrys-next-big-power-broker-2015-1" >This Young Saudi Prince Could Become His Country's Next Big Power Broker</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/michelle-obamas-headscarf-controversy-is-absurd-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/transferwises-similarities-to-hawala-2015-1London's $1 Billion Finance Startup TransferWise Is Just Like An Ancient Islamic Money Transfer Systemhttp://www.businessinsider.com/transferwises-similarities-to-hawala-2015-1
Mon, 26 Jan 2015 13:24:11 -0500Rob Price
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54c68658dd08950d4a8b45a2-1200-924/islamic-architecture-middle-east-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Islamic architecture middle east"></p><p>TransferWise is the hottest tech property in London right now. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/transferwise-58-million-andreessen-horowitz-2015-1">The finance startup has raised $58 million on a rumoured valuation of almost $1 billion</a> off the back of its ingenious way to transfer money overseas with almost no fees.</p>
<p>It does this by not actually transferring money across borders — instead, it matches up payments with those going the opposite direction. So "your" money never actually leaves the country — it's just rerouted to someone who's being sent a similar amount by someone overseas. Your foreign recipient, meanwhile, receives their funds from someone trying to send money out of their own country.</p>
<p>The beauty of TransferWise is that despite its complexity, its users never have to worry about these peer-to-peer details. <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/how-transferwise-works-2015-1">Their money just transfers quickly and cheaply, at the click of a button</a>.</p>
<p>It's all powered by highly sophisticated back-end software, but despite this, the underpinning concept isn't new. In fact, <a href="https://twitter.com/Michael_Levitis/status/559767485910896640">as Michael Levitis pointed out to me on Twitter</a>, it bears remarkable similarities to an ancient Islamic money transfer system called <em>Hawala</em>. (It's a comparison <a href="http://qz.com/84388/facebooks-first-funder-just-put-his-money-into-a-start-up-thats-a-lot-like-an-ancient-islamic-money-transfer-system/">also made by Quartz</a>.)</p>
<p>Much like TransferWise, Hawala sidesteps the headache of actually transferring goods across borders (something even more difficult when you're dealing with gold or physical assets hundreds of years ago). Instead, there's a network of brokers, or Hawaladars, who are based in all of the possible recipient locations. A customer might go to the Hawaladar in the first city, agree to transfer funds, and be given a password. When the recipient in the second city uses that password, funds are given to them from the second Hawaladar's cache. The funds paid to the first Hawaladar, meanwhile, remain with him, until a transfer in the opposite direction releases them.</p>
<p>The Hawala system has been used to bypass the US trade embargo of Iran, <a href="http://www.gsnmagazine.com/article/23515/ny_man_given_light_sentence_iranian_money_launderi">Government Security News reports</a>. It's not clear what would happen if a customer used TransferWise were used to avoid an embargo in a similar incident.</p>
<p>So while TransferWise's solution to the age-old problem of international money transfer is an innovative one, it's definitely not a new one. It just goes to show — the old ideas are often the best ones.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/transferwises-similarities-to-hawala-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/r-turkish-court-orders-facebook-to-block-pages-insulting-mohammad-media-2015-1A Turkish Court Has Ordered Facebook To Block Pages That Insult The Prophet Muhammadhttp://www.businessinsider.com/r-turkish-court-orders-facebook-to-block-pages-insulting-mohammad-media-2015-1
Mon, 26 Jan 2015 05:44:00 -0500
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54c61a2a69bedd7a463fc25f-480-/people-are-silhouetted-as-they-pose-with-mobile-devices-in-front-of-a-screen-projected-with-a-facebook-logo-in-this-picture-illustration-taken-in-zenica-october-29-2014-reutersdado-ruvic-1.jpg" border="0" alt="People are silhouetted as they pose with mobile devices in front of a screen projected with a Facebook logo, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica October 29, 2014. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic " width="480"></p><p>ANKARA (Reuters) - A Turkish court has ordered Facebook to block a number of pages deemed insulting to the Prophet Muhammad, threatening to stop access to the whole social networking site if it does not comply, local media reported.</p>
<p>The order made by the court on Sunday followed a request by a prosecutor, state broadcaster TRT reported. No one from Facebook was immediately available for comment.</p>
<p>It was the latest move to crack down on material seen as offending religious sensibilities in the largely Muslim nation, where the government of President Tayyip Erdogan is seen pursuing an Islamist-leaning agenda.</p>
<p>Earlier this month, prosecutors launched an inquiry into a newspaper which reprinted parts of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in the wake of an attack by Islamic militants on its offices in Paris.</p>
<p>(Reporting by Gulsen Solaker; Writing by Jonny Hogg; Editing by Daren Butler and Andrew Heavens)</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-turkish-court-orders-facebook-to-block-pages-insulting-mohammad-media-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/r-saudi-cleric-condemns-snowmen-as-anti-islamic-2015-1Saudi Cleric Condemns Snowmen As Anti-Islamichttp://www.businessinsider.com/r-saudi-cleric-condemns-snowmen-as-anti-islamic-2015-1
Mon, 12 Jan 2015 13:36:00 -0500
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54b413b0ecad041b5e9a4e92-725-544/noreaster-snowman-1.jpg" border="0" alt="noreaster snowman"></p><p>A prominent Saudi Arabian cleric has whipped up controversy by issuing a religious ruling forbidding the building of snowmen, described them as anti-Islamic.</p>
<p>Asked on a religious website if it was permissible for fathers to build snowmen for their children after a snowstorm in the country's north, Sheikh Mohammed Saleh al-Munajjid replied: "It is not permitted to make a statue out of snow, even by way of play and fun."</p>
<p>Quoting from Muslim scholars, Sheikh Munajjid argued that to build a snowman was to create an image of a human being, an action considered sinful under the kingdom's strict interpretation of Sunni Islam.</p>
<p>"God has given people space to make whatever they want which does not have a soul, including trees, ships, fruits, buildings and so on," he wrote in his ruling.</p>
<p>That provoked swift responses from Twitter users writing in Arabic and identifying themselves with Arab names.</p>
<p>"They are afraid for their faith of everything ... sick minds," one Twitter user wrote.</p>
<p>Another posted a photo of a man in formal Arab garb holding the arm of a "snow bride" wearing a bra and lipstick. "The reason for the ban is fear of sedition," he wrote.</p>
<p>A third said the country was plagued by two types of people:</p>
<p>"A people looking for a fatwa (religious ruling) for everything in their lives, and a cleric who wants to interfere in everything in the lives of others through a fatwa," the user wrote.</p>
<p>Sheikh Munajjid had some supporters, however. "It (building snowmen) is imitating the infidels, it promotes lustiness and eroticism," one wrote.</p>
<p>"May God preserve the scholars, for they enjoy sharp vision and recognize matters that even Satan does not think about."</p>
<p>Snow has covered upland areas of Tabuk province near Saudi Arabia's border with Jordan for the third consecutive year as cold weather swept across the Middle East.</p>
<p>(Editing by Angus McDowall and Andrew Roche)</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/r-saudi-cleric-condemns-snowmen-as-anti-islamic-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/rupert-murdochs-controversial-comments-about-muslims-2015-1Rupert Murdoch Slammed After Saying Muslims 'Must Be Held Responsible' For 'Growing Jihadist Cancer'http://www.businessinsider.com/rupert-murdochs-controversial-comments-about-muslims-2015-1
Mon, 12 Jan 2015 07:52:00 -0500Pamela Engel
<p><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54b3b9d76da811221cbb8a76-1200-924/rupert-murdoch-56.jpg" border="0" alt="Rupert Murdoch"></p><p></p>
<p>Media mogul Rupert Murdoch is getting slammed on Twitter after making controversial statements about Muslims in light of the Paris terror attacks.</p>
<p>The News Corp. CEO seemed to suggest that all Muslims, even those who don't support extremist views, should have to answer for those who carry out terror attacks.</p>
<p>He tweeted:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>Maybe most Moslems peaceful, but until they recognize and destroy their growing jihadist cancer they must be held responsible.</p>
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) <a href="https://twitter.com/rupertmurdoch/status/553734788881076225">January 10, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>Big jihadist danger looming everywhere from Philippines to Africa to Europe to US. Political correctness makes for denial and hypocrisy.</p>
— Rupert Murdoch (@rupertmurdoch) <a href="https://twitter.com/rupertmurdoch/status/553735725032960000">January 10, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<p>France was <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/charlie-hebdo-shooters-have-taken-a-hostage-2015-1">hit with a spate of terror attacks last week</a>, including a shooting massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and two hostage situations in and around Paris.</p>
<p>The suspects who allegedly perpetrated the attacks were all affiliated with the same terror cell that once funneled young Muslims from France into Iraq to fight American troops.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Among those blasting Murdoch's remarks on Twitter were author J.K. Rowling and actor/comedian Aziz Ansari.</span></p>
<p>Both pointed out the hypocrisy in his statements:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>I was born Christian. If that makes Rupert Murdoch my responsibility, I'll auto-excommunicate. <a href="http://t.co/Atw1wNk8UX">http://t.co/Atw1wNk8UX</a></p>
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/554229281929564160">January 11, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>.<a href="https://twitter.com/dom209">@dom209</a> The Spanish Inquisition was my fault, as is all Christian fundamentalist violence. Oh, and Jim Bakker.</p>
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/554231217915441152">January 11, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script><p>Ansari went on a full-blown Twitter rant:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>.<a href="https://twitter.com/rupertmurdoch">@rupertmurdoch</a> Rups can we get a step by step guide? How can my 60 year old parents in NC help destroy terrorist groups? Plz advise.</p>
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) <a href="https://twitter.com/azizansari/status/554476297057873923">January 12, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>.@rupertmudoch Are you responsible for the evil shit all Christians do or just the insane amount of evil you yourself contribute to?</p>
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) <a href="https://twitter.com/azizansari/status/554476620681973760">January 12, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>.<a href="https://twitter.com/rupertmurdoch">@rupertmurdoch</a> You are Catholic, why are you not hunting pedophiles? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RupertsFault?src=hash">#RupertsFault</a></p>
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) <a href="https://twitter.com/azizansari/status/554476708653318146">January 12, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>.<a href="https://twitter.com/rupertmurdoch">@rupertmurdoch</a> is responsible for all pedophilia committed by anyone Catholic. <a href="https://twitter.com/rupertmurdoch">@rupertmurdoch</a> why are you pro-pedophile :(</p>
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) <a href="https://twitter.com/azizansari/status/554476906024681472">January 12, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>.<a href="https://twitter.com/rupertmurdoch">@rupertmurdoch</a> is Christian just like Mark David Chapman who shot John Lennon. Why didn't Rupert stop it? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/RupertsFault?src=hash">#RupertsFault</a></p>
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) <a href="https://twitter.com/azizansari/status/554477386977116160">January 12, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script><blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>To be clear, I am not religious and have nothing against Christians or Muslims, just ignorance like what <a href="https://twitter.com/rupertmurdoch">@rupertmurdoch</a> is spreading.</p>
— Aziz Ansari (@azizansari) <a href="https://twitter.com/azizansari/status/554477655714574336">January 12, 2015</a>
</blockquote>
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<h3><strong><br>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-facts-putin-world-controversy-2015-1">11 Facts That Show How Different Russia Is From The Rest Of The World</a></strong></h3>
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<p><strong> </strong></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/birmingham-muslim-comments-on-fox-news-2015-1#ixzz3Obtt2Rz8" >Fox News Terrorism Expert Claims Birmingham Is A 'Totally Muslim' City Where 'Non-Muslims' Don't Enter</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/rupert-murdochs-controversial-comments-about-muslims-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/jews-may-flee-france-2015-1French Prime Minister: If 100,000 Jews Leave, France Will No Longer Be Francehttp://www.businessinsider.com/jews-may-flee-france-2015-1
Sun, 11 Jan 2015 09:35:00 -0500JEFFREY GOLDBERG
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54b289616bb3f7d41636bd28-600-/manuel-valls-5.jpg" border="0" alt="manuel valls" width="600"></p><p>The <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/hostages-paris-supermarket-charlie-hebdo-killers-police/384378/">massacre</a> at a kosher supermarket in Paris on Friday reinforced a fear, expressed openly and with distressing frequency by many in France's half-million-strong Jewish community, that Islamist violence is compelling large numbers of Jews to flee.</p>
<p>Already, several thousand have left over the past few years.</p>
<p>But it is not merely the physical safety of France's Jews that is imperiled by anti-Semitic violence, the country's prime minister, Manuel Valls, argues, but the very idea of the French Republic itself.</p>
<p>In an interview conducted before the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket massacres, Valls told me that if French Jews were to flee in large numbers, the soul of the French Republic would be at risk.</p>
<p>"The choice was made by the French Revolution in 1789 to recognize Jews as full citizens," Valls told me. "To understand what the idea of the republic is about, you have to understand the central role played by the emancipation of the Jews. It is a founding principle."</p>
<p>Valls, a Socialist who is the son of Spanish immigrants, describes the threat of a Jewish exodus from France this way: "If 100,000 French people of Spanish origin were to leave, I would never say that France is not France anymore. But if 100,000 Jews leave, France will no longer be France. The French Republic will be judged a failure."</p>
<p>I met Valls at the Hotel Matignon, the prime minister's residence, in the 7th Arrondissement. (We spoke for a while, and I'll be incorporating the full interview with Valls into a longer article for the magazine about this set of issues. But, given the suddenly intensifying crisis, it seemed worthwhile to highlight some of the things he said.)</p>
<p>Valls made it a point, early in our meeting, to show me the desk used by one of his predecessors, the Jewish prime minister (and <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dreyfusard">Dreyfusard</a>) Leon Blum. "Jews were sometimes marginalized in France, but this was not Spain or other countries — they were never expelled, and they play a role in the life of France that is central," he said.</p>
<p>Valls, who on Saturday <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/01/france-declares-its-own-war-on-terror/384409/">declared</a> that France was now at war with radical Islam, has become a hero to his country's besieged Jews for speaking bluntly about the threat of Islamist anti-Semitism, a subject often discussed in euphemistic terms by the country's political and intellectual elite.</p>
<p>His fight, as interior minister, to ban performances of the anti-Semitic comedian <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-case-of-dieudonn-a-french-comedians-hate">Dieudonne</a> (the innovator of the inverted Nazi salute known as the <em>quenelle</em>) endeared him to the country's Jewish leadership, and he is almost alone on the European left in calling anti-Zionism a form of anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>"There is a new anti-Semitism in France," he told me. "We have the old anti-Semitism, and I'm obviously not downplaying it, that comes from the extreme right, but this new anti-Semitism comes from the difficult neighborhoods, from immigrants from the Middle East and North Africa, who have turned anger about Gaza into something very dangerous. Israel and Palestine are just a pretext. There is something far more profound taking place now."</p>
<p>In discussing the attacks on French synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses this summer, during the Gaza war, he said: "It is legitimate to criticize the politics of Israel. This criticism exists in Israel itself. But this is not what we are talking about in France. This is radical criticism of the very existence of Israel, which is anti-Semitic. There is an incontestable link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Behind anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism."</p>
<p>Though he worries about fear-driven emigration, Valls told me he believes that the government can work with the Jewish community to make it more secure. "The Jews of France are profoundly attached to France, but they need reassurance that they are welcome here, that they are secure here."</p>
<p>The French government, under President Francois Hollande and Valls, provides substantial funding each year to help physically secure French Jewish institutions, but Jewish leaders say that the government alone cannot make French Jews feel at ease.</p>
<p>"The prime minister has led some courageous battles," Simone Rodan-Benzaquen, the director of the American Jewish Committee's Paris office, who is close to the prime minister and other senior officials, told me this weekend. "He's the first one who has spoken out so clearly, without any ambiguity, about the reality we are facing."</p>
<p>She also praised Hollande for quickly labeling the kosher supermarket attack anti-Semitic. "The issue is that the government cannot protect every Jewish person and Jewish institution. There's always more to do, but they can't do everything. Even if they did all that needs to be done — counter-radicalization, education, making sure that imprisoned people don't become radicalized, and so on — there's always more to do. We have a very, very profound problem."</p>
<h3>NOW WATCH: Up To A Million People March In Unity Through Paris</h3>
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</div></div><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/jews-may-flee-france-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/what-we-know-about-charlie-hebdo-gunmen-2015-1Everything We Know About The Charlie Hebdo Gunmenhttp://www.businessinsider.com/what-we-know-about-charlie-hebdo-gunmen-2015-1
Fri, 09 Jan 2015 10:52:00 -0500Pamela Engel and Jeremy Bender
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/man-linked-to-paris-attacks-voluntarily-hands-himself-in-to-police-2015-1"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54adf1f96da8112b3dc7df71-480-/paris3-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Paris" width="480"></a>A massive <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/man-linked-to-paris-attacks-voluntarily-hands-himself-in-to-police-2015-1">manhunt is underway</a> for brothers&nbsp;Said and Cherif Kouachi, the main suspects in a shooting attack in Paris that killed 12 people on Wednesday.</p>
<p>The brothers have been well known to French authorities for at least a decade and reportedly had known connections to Islamic terrorists.</p>
<p>More is known about Cherif, 32, than Said, 34, but both appear to have jihadist backgrounds.</p>
<p>Both were French nationals of Algerian descent and come from secular backgrounds, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/two-brothers-suspected-in-killings-were-known-to-french-intelligence-services.html">according to</a> The New York Times. A French newspaper report cited by The Times said Cherif was raised in foster care in western France and trained to be a fitness instructor before he moved to Paris, where he lived with his brother and third person, a convert to Islam.</p>
<p>Cherif reportedly worked delivering pizzas and as a shop assistant and fishmonger while he lived in France.</p>
<p>His introduction to radical Islam came from a janitor at a Paris mosque named Farid Benyettou, The Washington Post <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/suspect-in-paris-attack-had-long-term-obsession-carrying-out-terror-attack/2015/01/08/b36f6c90-974e-11e4-aabd-d0b93ff613d5_story.html">reports</a>. <span>Benyettou</span>&nbsp;was charismatic and shared the same working-class background as Cherif. Benyettou's influence led to the janitor becoming a challenge to the leadership of Paris's Addawa Mosque, where the imam was seen as disconnected from the issues affecting North Africans in the city.</p>
<p>Bemyettou was known as the spiritual leader of a terror cell "Filiere [brothers] des Buttes Chaumont," a group that helped funnel fighters into Iraq during the American invasion, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-08/paris-attack-suspect-had-history-of-terror-charge-arrests.html?hootPostID=df26b74d687319df13fd3aaa3c3380a1">according</a> to Bloomberg.<a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-08/paris-attack-suspect-had-history-of-terror-charge-arrests.html?hootPostID=df26b74d687319df13fd3aaa3c3380a1"><br></a></p>
<p>The terror cell's recruits reportedly traveled to fight alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former Al Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in 2006. &nbsp;<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Cherif, who has also taken the name Abu Issen, was linked to the cell in 2005 and has been arrested twice in connection with terrorists in France.</span></p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54adac52ecad045f562702b5-384-387/screenshot 2015-01-07 16.58.44.png" border="0" alt="Screenshot 2015 01 07 16.58.44">While the brothers were involved with Benyettou and&nbsp;the terror cell they reportedly learned how to operate automatic weapons like the ones used in Wednesday's attack on the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which has published cartoons that some Muslims find offensive.</p>
<p>Experts, citing the video of the attack, believe the attackers were <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-ardolino-bill-roggio-paris-jihadists-displayed-professional-training-2015-1">professionally trained</a>.</p>
<p>A French magazine cited a police source saying the brothers were "small time delinquents who became radicalized,"<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11332411/Said-and-Cherif-Kouachi-who-are-the-two-brothers-suspected-of-launching-Charlie-Hebdo-attack.html">according to</a> The Telegraph.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Cherif was arrested in 2005 days before he was set to fly to Syria and then to Iraq, The Telegraph </span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11332411/Said-and-Cherif-Kouachi-who-are-the-two-brothers-suspected-of-launching-Charlie-Hebdo-attack.html">reports</a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">. In 2008, he was convicted on terrorism charges related to the 2005 case and sentenced to three years in prison with an 18-month suspended sentence.</span></p>
<p>During his trial, Cherif said&nbsp;he was outraged by images of the torture of Iraqi inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison run by the US in Iraq. He also mentioned wanting to attack Jewish targets in France, according to The Times.</p>
<p>He said he "really believed in the idea" of jihad, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_wires/2008Mar30/0,4675,FranceapossHolyWarriors,00.html">according to</a> the Associated Press.</p>
<p>Cherif's lawyer portrayed him as a normal young man who had gone astray and realized the error of his ways, noting that he liked to drink and smoke pot and "wasn't particularly religious," <a href="http://triblive.com/mobile/1496488-96/regional-the-battleground-terrorism-french-muslims-france-boubaker-ollivier-paris">according to</a> a reporter who traveled to Europe to study the threat of Islam for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in 2005.</p>
<p>The lawyer said Cherif had been having second thoughts about jihad after his arrest.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54ae7acaecad047b35c27142-717-358/paris-shooters-9.png" border="0" alt="Paris shooters" width="800" style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Cherif's next arrest came in 2010 in connection with the&nbsp;attempted prison escape of former&nbsp;Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) member Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, who had carried out terrorist attacks in France in the 1990s, according to The Telegraph. Said's name also appeared in the police report and although Cherif was held for four months, neither brother ended up being convicted.</span></p>
<p>They reportedly traveled to Syria after this, returning last summer, Bloomberg reports.</p>
<p>Cherif is also thought to have ties to&nbsp;French jihadist Djamel Beghal, who spent 10 years in prison for planning terrorist attacks, The Telegraph reports. Cherif and Beghal were thought to have participated in militant training together.</p>
<p>Cherif's older brother is believed to have had more direct ties to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Said is suspected of having traveled to Yemen and participated in an AQAP training camp, <a href="http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2015/01/investigators_explor.php">according</a> to The Long War Journal.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The New York Times, citing an unnamed senior US official, <a href="http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/suspect-said-to-have-trained-with-al-qaeda-in-yemen/ar-AA7WpUl?ocid=mailsignout">reported</a> that Said trained for a few months on small arms. According to two unnamed Yemeni officials that spoke to the Associated Press, Said is suspected of having <a href="http://www.startribune.com/world/288046831.html">fought alongside AQAP</a> during the Arab Spring when the organization overran large segments of the south of the country.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Said is thought to have been in Yemen until 2012.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The two brothers were both on the US "no fly" list that would have prevented either one from boarding a commercial flight to the United States. The brothers were also on a US master list of suspected individuals with ties to terrorism, an unnamed US official <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-08/small-fry-who-went-rogue-how-paris-attack-suspect-turned-killer.html">told</a> Bloomberg.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The brothers most recently lived in&nbsp;Gennevilliers, a Paris suburb, according to Bloomberg.&nbsp;</p>
<p>According to Tunisian neighbors of the brothers in Gennevilliers, the two brothers would loudly recite the Koran at all hours in the apartment. The neighbors, <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/suspects-in-paris-shooting-had-cache-of-arms-neighbour-says/article22372220/">speaking</a> to The Globe and Mail, said that the brothers had a "cache of arms" in the apartment.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The neighbors, a husband and wife, discovered the cache after the husband and a plumber broke into the apartment. However, the brothers attacked the husband after the break-in and intimidated everyone involved into silence.&nbsp;</p><p><strong>MORE:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/charlie-hebdo-shooters-have-taken-a-hostage-2015-1" >French police are dealing with two linked hostage situations</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/man-linked-to-paris-attacks-voluntarily-hands-himself-in-to-police-2015-1#ixzz3OEU5heyF" >2 Gunmen In Paris Shooting Reportedly Spotted In Northern France; 7 Arrested In Investigation</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-we-know-about-charlie-hebdo-gunmen-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-we-know-about-charlie-hebdo-gunmen-said-and-cherif-kouachi-2015-1Everything We Know About The Brothers Suspected Of Carrying Out The Paris Terror Attackhttp://www.businessinsider.com/everything-we-know-about-charlie-hebdo-gunmen-said-and-cherif-kouachi-2015-1
Thu, 08 Jan 2015 07:43:00 -0500Pamela Engel
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/man-linked-to-paris-attacks-voluntarily-hands-himself-in-to-police-2015-1"><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54adf1f96da8112b3dc7df71-480-/paris3-2.jpg" border="0" alt="Paris" width="480"></a>A massive <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/man-linked-to-paris-attacks-voluntarily-hands-himself-in-to-police-2015-1">manhunt is underway</a> for brothers&nbsp;Said and Cherif Kouachi, the main suspects in a terrorist shooting attack in Paris that killed 12 people on Wednesday.</p>
<p>The brothers have been well known to French authorities for at least a decade and reportedly had known connections to Islamic terrorists.</p>
<p>More is known about Cherif, 32, than Said, 34, but both appear to have jihadist backgrounds.</p>
<p>Both were French nationals of Algerian descent and come from secular backgrounds, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/08/world/two-brothers-suspected-in-killings-were-known-to-french-intelligence-services.html">according to</a> The New York Times. A French newspaper report cited by The Times said Cherif was raised in foster care in western France and trained to be a fitness instructor before he moved to Paris, where he lived with his brother and a convert to Islam.</p>
<p>Cherif reportedly worked delivering pizzas and as a shop assistant and fishmonger while he lived in France.</p>
<p>He was influenced by the radical Paris mosque preacher&nbsp;Farid Benyettou, the Times report said. <span>Benyettou</span>&nbsp;was known as the spiritual leader of the terror cell "Filiere des Buttes Chaumont," a group that helped funnel fighters into Iraq during the American invasion, <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-08/paris-attack-suspect-had-history-of-terror-charge-arrests.html?hootPostID=df26b74d687319df13fd3aaa3c3380a1">according to</a> Bloomberg.</p>
<p>The terror cell's recruits were reportedly going to fight alongside Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former Al Qaeda leader in Iraq who was killed in 2006.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54adac52ecad045f562702b5-384-387/screenshot 2015-01-07 16.58.44.png" border="0" alt="Screenshot 2015 01 07 16.58.44">While they were involved with Benyettou and&nbsp;the terror cell, they reportedly learned how to use automatic weapons like the ones used in Wednesday's attack of the satirical French magazine Charlie Hebdo, which has published cartoons that some Muslims find offensive.</p>
<p>Experts, citing the video of the attack, believe the attackers were <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-ardolino-bill-roggio-paris-jihadists-displayed-professional-training-2015-1">professionally trained</a>.</p>
<p>A French magazine cited a police source saying the brothers were "smalltime delinquents who became radicalized,"<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11332411/Said-and-Cherif-Kouachi-who-are-the-two-brothers-suspected-of-launching-Charlie-Hebdo-attack.html">according to</a> The Telegraph.</p>
<p>Cherif, who has also taken the name Abu Issen, was linked to the cell in 2005 and has been arrested twice in connection with terrorists in France.</p>
<p>He was arrested in 2005 days before he was set to fly to Syria and then to Iraq, The Telegraph <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11332411/Said-and-Cherif-Kouachi-who-are-the-two-brothers-suspected-of-launching-Charlie-Hebdo-attack.html">reports</a>. In 2008, Cherif was convicted on terrorism charges related to the 2005 case and sentenced to three years in prison with an 18-month suspended sentence.</p>
<p>During his trial, Cherif said&nbsp;he was outraged by images of the torture of Iraqi inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison run by the US in Iraq. He also mentioned wanting to attack Jewish targets in France, according to The Times.</p>
<p>He said he "really believed in the idea" of jihad, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/printer_friendly_wires/2008Mar30/0,4675,FranceapossHolyWarriors,00.html">according to</a> the Associated Press.</p>
<p>Cherif's lawyer portrayed him as a normal young man who had gone astray and realized the error of his ways, noting that he liked to drink and smoke pot and "wasn't particularly religious," <a href="http://triblive.com/mobile/1496488-96/regional-the-battleground-terrorism-french-muslims-france-boubaker-ollivier-paris">according to</a> a reporter who traveled to Europe to study the threat of Islam for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review in 2005.</p>
<p>The lawyer said Cherif had been having second thoughts about jihad after his arrest.</p>
<p>But that appeared not to hold.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54ae7acaecad047b35c27142-717-358/paris-shooters-9.png" border="0" alt="Paris shooters" width="800"></p>
<p>Cherif's next arrest came in 2010 in connection with the&nbsp;attempted prison escape of former&nbsp;Algerian Armed Islamic Group (GIA) member Smain Ait Ali Belkacem, who had carried out terrorist attacks in France in the 1990s, according to The Telegraph. Said's name also appeared in the police report, and although Cherif was held for four months, neither brother ended up being convicted.</p>
<p>They reportedly traveled to Syria after this, returning last summer, Bloomberg reports.</p>
<p>Cherif is also thought to have ties to&nbsp;French jihadist Djamel Beghal, who spent 10 years in prison for planning terrorist attacks, The Telegraph reports. Cherif and Beghal were thought to have participated in militant training together.</p>
<p>The brothers most recently lived in&nbsp;Gennevilliers, a Paris suburb, according to Bloomberg.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/man-linked-to-paris-attacks-voluntarily-hands-himself-in-to-police-2015-1#ixzz3OEU5heyF" >2 Gunmen In Paris Shooting Reportedly Spotted In Northern France; 7 Arrested In Investigation</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-we-know-about-charlie-hebdo-gunmen-said-and-cherif-kouachi-2015-1#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/british-man-arrested-for-allegedly-burning-the-quran-2014-12British Man Arrested For Allegedly Ripping Apart A Copy Of The Qu'ran With His Teeth And Burning Ithttp://www.businessinsider.com/british-man-arrested-for-allegedly-burning-the-quran-2014-12
Wed, 31 Dec 2014 06:07:38 -0500Joshua Barrie
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54a3d91add089531408b460d-909-681/quran.jpg" border="0" alt="Qu'ran"></p><p>A man from Leeds in West Yorkshire has been released on bail after allegedly posting on social media a video that ends with him burning a copy of the Qu'ran.</p>
<p>The 19-year-old was arrested on Dec. 27 after people raised concerns for his safety, <a href="http://www.yorkshirestandard.co.uk/news/19-year-old-released-on-bail-after-alleged-koran-burning-video-9133/">the Yorkshire Standard reports</a>. Apparently the man ripped apart an English translation of the Islamic holy religious text with his teeth, put it in the toilet, and then burnt it.</p>
<p>The paper says he was arrested by Leeds police in Beeston in connection with an offensive video posted on a social media website and was later released on bail. It is thought the footage has been taken down and the suspect has not been named. He was arrested on suspicion of a racially or religiously aggravated public order offence.&nbsp;</p>
<p>Members of the public alerted the Yorkshire Standard about the video, which was reportedly shared at least 1,000 times and had more than 100 comments. Some were said to be death threats.&nbsp;</p>
<p>The law about burning a holy text such as the Qu'ran isn't clear cut in the UK. In the US it is entirely legal. Accorss the pond,&nbsp;<span style="color: #000000;">it's a punishable offence u</span><span style="color: #000000;">nder Britain's <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-racial-and-religious-hatred-act-2006">Racial and Religious Hatred act 2006</a>.&nbsp;</span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">There remains an issue of freedom of speech and ownership of material, but ultimately people could be prosecuted when there is a demonstrable advocacy of hate crime laws.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p>In 2011, <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/wales-koran-sion-owens-2011-4">Business Insider wrote about British National Party candidate Sion Owens, who filmed himself burning a copy of the Qu'ran.</a> The clip was leaked to the Guardian and the man was subsequently arrested.&nbsp;</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Then, the Home Office stated:&nbsp;</span></p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span>"The government absolutely condemns the burning of the Qur'an. It is fundamentally offensive to the values of our pluralist and tolerant society. We equally condemn any attempts to create divisions between communities and are committed to ensuring that everyone has the freedom to live their lives free from fear of targeted hostility or harassment on the grounds of a particular characteristic, such as religion."</span></p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/british-man-arrested-for-allegedly-burning-the-quran-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/winston-churchills-family-worried-hed-convert-to-islam-2014-12Winston Churchill's Family Was Worried He'd Convert To Islamhttp://www.businessinsider.com/winston-churchills-family-worried-hed-convert-to-islam-2014-12
Mon, 29 Dec 2014 10:48:59 -0500Sharona Schwartz
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/54a1776e6bb3f7496a2f3545-600-/winston-churchill-11.jpg" border="0" alt="Winston Churchill" width="600"></p><p>The woman would would one day be Winston Churchill’s sister-in-law was so worried he might convert to Islam, she wrote a letter urging he rein in his enthusiasm for the religion to which he had been exposed as a British officer serving in Sudan.</p>
<p>In a newly-discovered letter dated August 1907, Lady Gwendoline Bertie, who later married Churchill’s brother Jack, described what she saw as an alarming fascination with Islamic culture.</p>
<p>“Please don’t become converted to Islam; I have noticed in your disposition a tendency to orientalize, Pasha-like tendencies, I really have,” she wrote in the letter that was discovered by Cambridge University history research fellow Warren Dockter.</p>
<p>“If you come into contact with Islam your conversion might be effected with greater ease than you might have supposed, call of the blood, don’t you know what I mean, do fight against it,” she wrote in the letter that was&nbsp;<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11314580/Sir-Winston-Churchill-s-family-feared-he-might-convert-to-Islam.html" target="_blank">widely</a>&nbsp;<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2889137/How-Churchill-s-future-sister-law-pleaded-not-convert-Islam.html" target="_blank">reported</a>&nbsp;in the British media Sunday.</p>
<p>But were Lady Gwendoline’s fears based in a reliable assessment of Churchill’s mindset?</p>
<p>“Churchill never seriously considered converting,”&nbsp;<a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/sir-winston-churchills-family-begged-him-not-to-convert-to-islam-letter-reveals-9946787.html" target="_blank">Dockter told The Independent</a>. “He was more or less an atheist by this time anyway. He did however have a fascination with Islamic culture which was common among Victorians.”</p>
<p>That fascination was expressed in a letter to Lady Lytton in 1907 in which Churchill wrote he “wished he were” a Pasha (a high-rank in the Ottoman Empire).</p>
<p>He also occasionally privately dressed in Arab-style clothing along with his friend, poet Wilfrid S. Blunt.</p>
<p>Dockter said, “[Lady Gwendoline Bertie] would have been worried because Churchill&nbsp;was leaving for an African tour and she would have known Churchill&nbsp;had been seeing his friend, Wilfrid S. Blunt, who was a renowned Arabist, anti-imperialist and poet. Though he and Churchill&nbsp;were friends and dressed in Arabian dress at times for Blunt’s eccentric&nbsp; parties, they rarely agreed.”</p>
<div id="ad-300x250-instory-1" data-cb-ad-id="instory_300x250-1">
<div id="google_ads_iframe_/75484061/TheBlaze.com/Stories/Faith_4__container__">Churchill’s own writings included&nbsp;<a href="http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/04/27/if-you-quote-winston-churchill-on-this-topic-you-could-go-to-jail-in-modern-day-great-britain/" target="_blank">harsh criticism</a>&nbsp;of what he described as the negative effects of Islam.</div>
</div>
<p>In his 1899 book, “The River War: An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan,” he wrote, “How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.”</p>
<p>“The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live,” Churchill wrote in 1899.</p>
<p>“The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities – but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith,” Churchill wrote.</p>
<p>Despite those earlier writings, Churchill in 1940 approved plans to build a mosque in central London and budgeted £100,000 for the project,&nbsp;<a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/11314580/Sir-Winston-Churchill-s-family-feared-he-might-convert-to-Islam.html" target="_blank">Britain’s Telegraph reported</a>, which he hoped would draw the support of Muslim countries for Britain’s efforts in World War II.</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/winston-churchills-family-worried-hed-convert-to-islam-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/man-haron-moris-was-out-on-bail-2014-12Australia Wants To Know Why The Sydney Gunman, A Suspect In A Murder, Was Out On Bailhttp://www.businessinsider.com/man-haron-moris-was-out-on-bail-2014-12
Tue, 16 Dec 2014 05:38:54 -0500Alex Heber
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/54900be3dd0895bc118b457c-650-487/man-haron-monis-1.jpg" alt="Man Haron Monis " border="0"></p><p>Authorities will launch an investigation into how, with&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/sydney-siege-police-have-released-the-name-of-the-gunman-2014-12">such a chequered history</a>, Sydney siege gunman Man Haron Monis, was allowed to walk the streets.</p>
<p>The NSW state government today admitted the 50-year-old self-proclaimed Muslim cleric, also known as the “Fake Sheikh”, slipped through the cracks of both security and policing agencies.</p>
<p>NSW Attorney-General Brad Hazzard said authorities are now investigating the man’s past. He’s been known to authorities for years.</p>
<p>“We are asking state agencies and federal agencies to look very closely at how this offender slipped through the cracks,” he said.</p>
<p>“How did this offender not come to the attention of state and federal agencies for more urgent action?”</p>
<p>Before his death, Monis was released on bail after being charged as an accessory to murder in the death of his ex-wife. He also faced dozens of indecent and sexual assault allegations.</p>
<p>“This offender was granted bail under the previous legislation, in fact two previous bail acts,” Hazzard said, adding he would not have been free if the new act was in force.</p>
<p>“It’s frustrating. It’s very frustrating for us. It’s frustrating for me as Attorney-General. It’s frustrating for the Premier, it’s frustrating for the entire government. It’s frustrating for the entire NSW community but we must accept the advice of our professionals,” he said.</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/548f001d69bedd1179d40512-540-960/10846235_10203076230092236_5354144827106369284_n.jpg" alt="Man Haron Moris " border="0">“The professionals are absolutely adamant that January 28 is the earliest possible operational date for the legislation.”</p>
<p>The siege, which&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/sydney-siege-latest-2014-12">came to an end just after 2am on Tuesday morning when police stormed the Lindt Chocolate Cafe in a hail of gunfire</a>, claimed the lives of two of the 17 hostages along with Monis.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com.au/we-pay-respect-to-the-two-hostages-who-lost-their-lives-in-the-sydney-siege-2014-12">The identities of the two hostages killed during the 16-hour-long siege&nbsp;</a>at the cafe in Sydney’s Martin Place have been revealed to be barrister Katrina Dawson and Lindt Cafe manager, Tori Johnson.</p>
<p>At the time of the siege Monis was on bail, due to face court over two separate matters.</p>
<p>Last November he was charged with being an accessory before and after the fact to the murder of Noleen Hayson Pal, his ex-wife, who died in April 2013 in the stairwell of her Werrington apartment after being stabbed and set alight. His then girlfriend, Amirah Droudis was charged with murder.</p>
<p>He was bailed just over a year ago, on December 12, 2013 by Magistrate Daryl Pearce who said it was a “simple matter of fairness”.</p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Monis was also facing more than 40 sexual assault charges involving seven alleged victims. In March this year Monis was arrested and charged with the assault of a woman during a “spiritual healing” consultation in Wentworthville.</span></p>
<p>Before that Monis was charged with sending “grossly offensive” letters to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2009. Monis was sentenced to 300 hours of community service and slapped with a two-year good behaviour bond.</p>
<p>He also approached the family of one soldier at the man’s funeral.</p>
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/54900be3dd0895bc118b457d-836-627/sydney-victims.png" alt="Sydney Victims" border="0">He regularly posted extensive rants against public figures. After Tony Abbott was elected in September 2013, Monis sent the prime minister a letter challenging him to a debate in which he said he would prove that “Australia and Australians will be attacked” as a result of the nation’s participation in the war in Afghanistan.</p>
<p>It has been claimed one of Monis’ demands during the siege on Monday was to have a discussion with Abbott.</p>
<p>Monis had been disowned by the Shia community, labelled as a fringe figure. In 2008 one of Australia’s senior Shia leaders, Kamal Mousselmani urged the federal police to investigate “Sheikh Haron”.</p>
<p>“We don’t know him and we have got nothing to do with him,” Sheikh Mousselmani said at the time. “The federal police should investigate who he is. It should be their responsibility.”</p>
<p>His website SheikHaron.com has been suspended, but featured the following statement earlier this week.</p>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;"><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Islam is the religion of peace, that’s why Muslims fight against the oppression and terrorism of USA and its allies including UK and Australia. If we stay silent towards the criminals we cannot have a peaceful society. The more you fight with crime, the more peaceful you are. Islam wants peace on the Earth, that’s why Muslims want to stop terrorism of America and its allies. When you speak out against crime you have taken one step towards peace.</span></p>
<p>His former lawyer, Manny Conditsis described him as a “damaged goods individual that’s done something quite outrageous” with “nothing to lose”.</p>
<p>“With all that I know and what has occurred over the past year I’m not at all surprised because he is, or was, an extreme ideologue and there were many occasions where it was clear his thought process was so distorted by his passion for what he thought he wanted to achieve, or his perception of what he wanted to achieve, that anything like this could of happened,” Conditsis told ABC Radio earlier today.</p>
<p>“If you put that sort of an ideologue in that sort of a situation where he’s facing extremely serious criminal charges after having been in custody on remand, to use his terminology ‘tortured’ then from his point of view, I can certainly see that he may well of considered that he had nothing to lose.</p>
<p>“This is a damaged goods individual that has acted out of absolute desperation by committing this outrageous act.”</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/man-haron-moris-was-out-on-bail-2014-12#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/views-of-jerusalem-2014-11A Look At Jerusalem Like You've Never Seen Beforehttp://www.businessinsider.com/views-of-jerusalem-2014-11
Wed, 26 Nov 2014 14:27:00 -0500Armin Rosen
<p>Although it's changed hands&nbsp;<a href="http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2011/03/conquests-of-jerusalem-and-israels.html">some 61 times</a>&nbsp;during the course of its 3,000-year history, modern-day Jerusalem is hardly the nexus of violence and controversy that it appears to be from the outside.</p>
<p>The city of today is a sometimes contentious fabric of Jews, Christians, and Muslims, although once you're there (as I was last week) these overly-broad categories start to feel like a trivializing over-simplification.</p>
<p>The city's Christian community includes a millennia-old Armenian enclave and a Mormon college that's only 25 years old; its Jews range from the black-clad Hassids of Mea She'arim or Kiryas Belz to the secular intellectuals who teach at the Hebrew University, or the westernized yuppies of who fill the cafes of Katamon and Rehavia.</p>
<p>Most of the city's Muslims, who live in the formerly Jordanian-occupied parts of Jerusalem that Israel took during the 1967 Middle East War, are mostly neither citizens of Israel nor subjects of the West Bank-based Palestinian authority. As scholar Johnathan Schanzer recently noted in Foreign Policy, a wave of protests and violent attacks over Israeli policies in the city have made Jerusalem "<a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/11/10/jerusalem_knife_edge_palestine_attacks_unrest_stabbing_intifada">the epicenter of Palestinian unrest</a>" for the first time in decades.</p>
<p><span>The city lives under a tenuous religious, cultural, and political balance that frequently buckles without ever snapping altogether — even if events like&nbsp;<a href="http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Politics-And-Diplomacy/Har-Nof-residents-resume-daily-life-in-the-shadow-of-savage-attack-382253">last week's deadly attack</a>&nbsp;on a West Jerusalem synagogue have raised the ominous if however distant specter of violent disintegration. But as Yossi Klein Halevi noted in the Wall Street Journal in the wake of the attack, even with the upsurge of violence in the rest of the Middle East over the past few years, "the mixed city of Jerusalem has maintained, almost unnoticed, its civility and common decency."</span></p>
<p><span>There's little reason to think that will change. And t</span><span>here's no better place to get a sense of the city's rich history and equally deep complexities than the top of the bell tower of the 19th century&nbsp;<a href="http://www.elcjhl.org/elcjhl-ministries/congregations/jerusalem/">Lutheran Church of the Redeemer</a>&nbsp;in middle of the old city's Christian's quarter. It's offers a unique vantage point on Jerusalem's spectacular built environment — and on where the city's fault lines lie.</span></p>
<p><span>Here's what the view is like, and what it reveals.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5475fb2c69bedd5028619d0f-1051-586/screen shot 2014-11-26 at 10.26.18 am.png" border="0" alt="Jerusalem 1"><br></span></p>
<p><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">1:</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&nbsp;The Dome of the Rock is one of early Islam's architectural masterpieces and was built in the late 7th century, not long after the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem.</span></p>
<p><span>Jews believe that the rock that the shrine encloses is both the Holy of Holies of the Jerusalem temple and the spot where Abraham nearly sacrificed his son Isaac in chapter 22 of the book of Genesis. For Muslims, the rock is where Mohammed ascended to heaven with the angel Gabriel at his side.</span></p>
<p><span>The Dome occupies the site of several earlier buildings: the second and possibly first Jewish temples, a shrine to Jupiter constructed after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD.</span></p>
<p><strong>2:&nbsp;</strong><span>The Al Aqsa Mosque is the third-holiest site in Islam. While it isn't visible in this photo, the Mosque sits directly above&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple#mediaviewer/File:Temple_Mount_southern_wall_200509.jpg">the staircase and entranceway</a>&nbsp;to the Second Temple, the remains of which are preserved in a nearby archaeological park. It's also believed to be positioned above an ancient tunnel system connecting the long-destroyed Temple's lower entry to its inner courtyards.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><strong>3:&nbsp;</strong><span>A security lookout standing guard over one of the major streets leading between the fringes of the Jewish and the Christian quarters to ...</span></p>
<p><span><strong>4:</strong>&nbsp;The Western Wall, the holiest site in Judaism — that Jews are legally and religiously permitted to visit.</span></p>
<p><span>The Wall was an outer retaining barrier for the Second Temple built during King Harod's upgrades to the original, more modest structure less than 100 years before its destruction. Parts of Wall actaully extend under the entire western length of the Temple Mount, but the current Western Wall Plaza is built around an area that has been a center of Jewish pilgrimage and prayer for centuries.</span></p>
<p><span>There are two reasons Jews are not permitted to pray on the Temple Mount itself. One is religious: under Jewish law, a ritually impure individual cannot set foot in the Temple's Holy of Holies. The other is political: the Temple Mount is under the stewardship of the Jordanian government, which holds the area's Islamic holy sites in a religious trust. Jewish prayer on the Mount would be highly inflammatory to Muslims in Jerusalem and around the world and possibly even threaten Jordan and Israel's 1994 peace treaty.</span></p>
<p><span>The Western Wall represents a spiritual and temporal compromise — albeit a spiritually fulfilling one for Jewish visitors from around the world.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>5:</strong>&nbsp;The East Jerusalem Arab neighborhood of Silwan sits just outside the walls of the Jewish quarter — and on top of the archaeological remains of the original, 10th century BC city of Jerusalem mentioned in the Biblical books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles. Attempts to develop the site as a tourist attraction, along with the Jewish acquisition of property around what some believe to be the Biblical "City of David," are a major source of tension in the area.</span></p>
<p><strong>6:&nbsp;</strong><span>According to Jewish tradition, the Valley of Gehennom, between the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives, is where the souls of the dead will be resurrected on judgement day. The centuries-old Jewish cemetery blanketing this side of the Mount of Olives proves that Jews have a long-standing desire to have a front seat for the occasion.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/5475ffb269beddc939619d10-1050-642/screen shot 2014-11-26 at 10.28.30 am.png" border="0" alt="Jerusalem 2"><strong style="line-height: 1.5em;">1:&nbsp;</strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Damascus Gate is the most ornate entry point to Jerusalem's Old City. It's also one of the most important places in Arab East Jerusalem, a hub of commerce and a place to catch buses heading into the West Bank. When the Israelis place limits on Muslims access to the holy sites on the Temple Mount, Friday prayers will sometimes take place on the plaza facing the gate.</span></span></p>
<p><span>During the 1948 Middle East War, Jerusalem's entire Old City was left under Jordanian military occupation. The closed border between Jordanian and Israeli controlled sectors of the city ran along a now-active highway just a few hundred yards from the Damascus Gate — at least until the Israelis seized the eastern half of the city during the 1967 war.</span></p>
<p><strong>2:&nbsp;</strong><span>These high rises are the student dormitories of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel's most prominent center for secular study. The small white dot just to the right is the British military cemetery on Mount Scopus, where thousands of troops killed during the allied World War I campaign against the Ottoman Empire — which included General Edmund Allenby's&nbsp;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jerusalem_%281917%29">dramatic march into Jerusalem</a>&nbsp;— are buried.</span></p>
<p><strong>3:</strong><span>&nbsp;Though only vaguely visible in this photo, the Damascus Gate — the center of Arab East Jerusalem — is across the street from Mea She'arim, the&nbsp;<a href="http://www.photito.com/Other/The-people-of-Mea-Shearim/">most ultra-orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem</a>&nbsp;and possibly the entire world.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/547601ef6da811f6016eb7a7-1050-651/screen shot 2014-11-26 at 10.30.31 am.png" border="0" alt="Jerusalem 3"><br></span></p>
<p><strong>1:&nbsp;</strong><span>The Jerusalem Citadel has been the Old City's main point of defense for millennia — the current structure, built by the Ottoman emperor Suleiman the Magnificent, rests on top of walls and building foundations from pre-Roman times. This part of the city's walls were also garrisoned with Jordanian soldiers between 1948 and 1967, a time when the over 2000-year-old barrier marked the boundary point between the Israeli and Arab-controlled halves of the city.</span></p>
<p><strong>2:&nbsp;</strong><span>West Jerusalem's King David Hotel was the British headquarters during post World War I mandatory period. It was notoriously the target of a bomb attack by Jewish paramilitaries in 1946 that killed 91 people, in the midst of an escalating three-way fight between Palestine's Jews, Arabs, and British mandatory government over the region's future.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><strong>3:&nbsp;</strong><span>This modern skyscraper towers over King George and Ben Yehuda Streets — basically the center of present-day downtown West Jerusalem.</span></p>
<p><strong>4:&nbsp;</strong><span>This intersection, called Muristan, is at the center of the Old City's Christian Quarter.</span></p>
<p><strong>5:&nbsp;</strong><span>This tree-lined hill is the site of Yemin Moshe, the oldest Jewish neighborhood outside of the Old City's walls. It's been inhabited since the 1890s.</span></p>
<p><img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5476039decad04840367cf2e-1049-730/screen shot 2014-11-26 at 10.32.30 am.png" border="0" alt="Jerusalem 4"></p>
<p><strong>1:</strong> The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is where Jesus was crucified, entombed, and resurrected according to Christian belief. It's the holiest site in the religion, and doesn't occupy the space of any other, earlier shrine. But it's still <a href="http://www.holysepulchre.custodia.org/default.asp?id=4125">shared</a> between a half-dozen Christian sects that occupy their own corners of sometimes-labyrinthine complex that dates from Byzantine and Crusader times.</p>
<p>2: This stark modern skyscraper is located in Zion Square — one of West Jerusalem's central points.</p>
<p><img src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5476046669beddcf50619d11-1050-675/screen shot 2014-11-26 at 10.34.33 am.png" border="0" alt="Jerusalem 5"></p>
<p><strong>1:&nbsp;</strong>Like much of the rest of the Jewish Quarter, the Hurva Synagogue was destroyed during the 1948 Middle East war; the Old City was then <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=3kbU4BIAcrQC&amp;pg=PA326&amp;lpg=PA326&amp;dq=jordanian+occupation+of+east+jerusalem&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=SBf4UtG92e&amp;sig=0z2GbSvqzHhMc-Jf9E4Xcv-q3Hc&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=pxZ2VKGNGo2wsAS9iYKAAQ&amp;ved=0CEQQ6AEwBjgy#v=onepage&amp;q=jordanian%20occupation%20of%20east%20jerusalem&amp;f=false">kept off-limits to Jews </a>during the 19-year-long Jordanian occupation. The synagogue's original structure dates to the 1860s, although the reconstructed building was opened in 2010.</p>
<p><strong>2:&nbsp;</strong>The basement of the Wohl Building, which is now a Jewish religious study center, houses the millennia-old ruins of the part of the ancient city of Jerusalem where the Jewish priestly class lived before the Second Temple's destruction in 70 AD.</p>
<p><strong>3:&nbsp;</strong>The West Bank barrier is just barely visible in this photo. Constructed by Israel to stanch the wave of suicide bombings that hit Israel during the Second Intifada of the early 2000s and control West Bank Palestinian access to Israel proper,&nbsp;<a href="http://972mag.com/the-wall-10-years-on-the-great-israeli-project/40683/">under 10%</a>&nbsp;of the barrier is a concrete wall. It has turned into a potent symbol of Israel's ongoing control over the disputed West Bank — the Palestinian Arab areas that Israel took from a vanquished Jordanian army during the 1967 Middle East War. More optimistically, the barrier, which largely (though not entirely) follows the post-1948 War Israeli-Jordanian disarmament line, could help demarcate a border between Israel and an independent Palestinian state if there's ever a peace agreement.</p>
<p>The wall sections reach up to 24 feet, and are a grim and ever-present reminder of the Israel-Palestinian conflict's endurance.</p>
<p><strong>4:</strong>&nbsp;These hills contain the predominantly Arab neighborhoods of Silwan and Abu Tur. These are poorer areas built into steep hillsides and are both physically and infrastructural cut off from more affluent neighborhoods in nearby West Jerusalem.</p>
<p><strong>5:&nbsp;</strong>These antennas mark the headquarters of the UN's observer mission in Palestine. With violence on the rise and no resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in site, the mission won't be folding up shop anytime soon.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/americas-secret-elite-warriors-2014-11" >These are America's elite secret warriors</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/views-of-jerusalem-2014-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/burying-ataturk-in-erdogans-castle-2014-11The Symbolism Behind Erdogan's Appalling New Presidential Palacehttp://www.businessinsider.com/burying-ataturk-in-erdogans-castle-2014-11
Mon, 03 Nov 2014 17:53:15 -0500Steven A. Cook
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/5457f177ecad041660a1341a-1200-800/erdogan new presidential palace ankara.jpg" border="0" alt="Erdogan new Presidential palace Ankara"></p><p>What can anyone say about Turkey’s&nbsp;<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2014/oct/29/turkeys-new-presidential-palace-unveiled-in-pictures" target="_blank">new presidential palace</a>&nbsp;that has not already been said?</p>
<p>It is enormous. It is gaudy. It is expensive. I am not sure what was wrong with the old place, which is nestled into a hillside in the Cankaya area of Ankara. Inside, it was a tasteful blend of republicanism with a subtle nod to Ottoman greatness, but it was altogether understated.</p>
<p>The aura of the old palace seemed consistent with the restraint and above-politics powers that were built into the Turkish presidency. I guess it was no longer right for the times.<span id="more-3943"></span></p>
<p>In many ways, the new building’s size and ostentation befits the castle’s current resident: Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose charisma, fearlessness, malevolence, and political cunning have made him the most important person in Turkey. He is, in effect, president, prime minister, foreign minister, mayor of Istanbul, and moral conscience to the nation.</p>
<p>And therein lies the symbolic importance of this neo-Ottoman monstrosity that has risen in a forest that was once Ataturk’s private property.</p>
<p>The new palace is a physical representation of what the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has&nbsp;sought to do since it&nbsp;came to power 12 years ago: Bury Ataturkism, rendering it a historical artifact — a fossil — all the while aggrandizing the new great man, Erdogan, who the faithful refer to as the “Great Master.”</p>
<p>The AKP has always paid lip service to Ataturk, but they never had any actual commitment to him. They came to power in antipathy to the “six arrows” of Ataturkism — republicanism, secularism, “revolutionism,” statism, nationalism, and a particular kind of populism.</p>
<p>In this opposition, Erdogan and his followers are not wrong. Strict adherence to these principles — or at least the way Ataturkism’s true believers interpreted them after Ataturk’s death in 1938 — demanded a political conformity that was not just secular, but irreligious and openly hostile to piety. It was also built on an ethnic chauvinism that could not accommodate Kurds in the Turkish midst. In order to maintain control over pious Turks and the country’s sizeable Kurdish minority, the political system that Ataturk built had to be authoritarian.</p>
<p>Ataturkism’s supporters and apologists would vehemently protest this claim, citing the advent of multi-party elections in the 1950s, the dizzying array of coalition governments in the 1970s, and the energetic opposition press, but Turkish politics during those years was played within a narrow band acceptable only to the General Staff.</p>
<p>Whenever politics strayed beyond what the officers perceived to be a threat to the republican order the military responded, most famously in the four coups d’états between 1960 and 1997 but also in countless other routine interventions through channels of influence the commanders placed strategically throughout the system.&nbsp;The military’s interventions reveal in and of themselves the weakness of Ataturkism. It never became embedded in the minds of Turks in a way that made Ataturkism “common sense.”</p>
<p>Consequently, it was always vulnerable to political challenge, meaning the military always needed to be vigilant in shoring it up through force and coercion. It was a losing proposition, though. Ataturkism was bound to fail. In the nine decades since the implementation of Ataturk’s reforms, Turkish society has become more complex, differentiated, and linked to the world beyond Anatolia.</p>
<p>Despite its negative consequences for Kurds and religious Turks, perhaps Ataturkism was necessary at that moment after WWI when Turks found themselves at their greatest peril.</p>
<p>Now it just seems irrelevant, which is why Erdogan’s new palace — more a mix of the worst of Dubai and Turkmenistan than&nbsp;<a href="http://www.greatsinan.com/bio.asp" target="_blank">Mimar Sinan</a>&nbsp;— is so gratuitous. Ataturkism was already dead; there is no need to bury it again.</p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/syrias-ominous-impact-on-turkey-2014-10" >Turkey's now the latest country to experience spillover violence from Syria</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/burying-ataturk-in-erdogans-castle-2014-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-its-like-living-under-isis-rule-in-fallujah-iraq-2014-11Here's What It's Like Living Under ISIS Rule In Fallujah, Iraqhttp://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-its-like-living-under-isis-rule-in-fallujah-iraq-2014-11
Mon, 03 Nov 2014 12:17:41 -0500Ahmed Rasheed & Michael Georgy
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54231ba9ecad04ee598b4570-1200-924/fallujah in march al qaeda.jpg" border="0" alt="Fallujah in March Al Qaeda"></p><p>After Islamic State seized <a>Falluja</a> in January it persuaded a man making covers for cars to sell suicide vests instead, one of many changes in the Iraqi city as it adapts to life under the ultra-hardline Sunni militants.</p>
<p>Islamic State is notorious for beheading or executing anyone who stands in its way when seizing cities and towns in <a>Iraq</a> and <a>Syria</a> that form its self-proclaimed caliphate, often using suicide bombers to make advances.</p>
<p>The militants have issued guidelines on life with their ideology, requiring all women to wear face veils, and banning the cigarettes and Western-style haircuts that were popular in <a>Falluja</a> before.</p>
<p>Many residents feel alienated by the changes. But in order to keep the "empire" and its holy war against governments and armies going, Islamic State also strikes deals with people like the tailor, according to recent visitors to <a>Falluja</a> who spoke to Reuters in <a>Baghdad</a> by telephone.</p>
<p>Islamic State provided a generator and free fuel, enabling him to boost profits and churn out suicide vests, belts and trousers from a building pockmarked by U.S. bullets used against al Qaeda nearly a decade ago.</p>
<p>"I passed through hard times. I have children to feed. I chose this new profession willingly and I take responsibility for the outcome," the tailor said.</p>
<p>Like other people quoted in this story, his name has not been included for security reasons.</p>
<p><a>Falluja</a> was the first Iraqi city to fall to Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot comprised of Arabs and foreign fighters who have threatened to march on nearby <a>Baghdad</a>.</p>
<p>During the U.S. occupation of <a>Iraq</a> after <a>Saddam Hussein</a> was toppled in 2003, it emerged as the main bastion of the Sunni insurgency in western Anbar province and swiftly became an al Qaeda stronghold. The U.S. Marines fought over it with al Qaeda in 2004 in two of the biggest battles of the American war.</p>
<p>A decade later, Islamic State is deeply entrenched in <a>Falluja</a>, making it one of the main examples of what life could soon be like across swathes of <a>Syria</a> and <a>Iraq</a> under its ultra-hardline ideology.</p>
<p>The mainly tribal town in the Euphrates valley just west of <a>Baghdad</a> has long been a bastion of traditional religious and cultural practice. Even Saddam's secular dictatorship was alarmed by Islamists there. But even its deeply conservative population has often been uneasy with life under Islamic State.</p>
<p>All women who appear at the entrances of <a>Falluja</a> are given a free head-to-toe niqab, or veil, that they are forced to put on in a booth with tinted glass so that men can't see them.</p>
<p>Islamic State has guidelines on what is forbidden in pamphlets pasted on buildings and mosques across <a>Falluja</a>: no cigarettes or shisha water pipes as they might distract people from worship, no Western-style haircuts, no T-shirts with English writing or images of women.</p>
<p>Women are not allowed to leave home unaccompanied by a male relative, a rule that has deepened frustrations.</p>
<p><strong><img src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/54512bdeecad04515ef68501-1200-706/screen shot 2014-10-29 at 11.52.28 am.png" border="0" alt="Iraq ISIS Fighters"></strong>One witness recalled how a crowd gathered as a woman in her fifties who used to sell women's underwear, clothes and nail polish shouted outside the <a>Falluja</a> Islamic State court, which rules on everything from crimes to disputes between neighbors.</p>
<p>The woman was heading to the court to argue she should be allowed to walk alone because she is a widow and did not want to burden her brothers. She yelled at Islamic State militants just outside the courthouse.</p>
<p>“You say God does not accept a woman going outside her house alone. Then how could God accept you killing people?,” a witness quoted the woman as saying.</p>
<p>A militant responded. "We would decapitate you if you were a man." The court ruled that she should be expelled from <a>Falluja</a>. She left with her belongings in a pickup truck and Islamic State took over her home.</p>
<p>Young girls under 12, the cut off age for enforcing the niqab, must wear a headscarf.</p>
<p>"Why do they force us to do something against our will? We were born free and it’s unfair to be treated like this,” said one woman whose six-year-old daughter was forced to wear a head scarf. Even shopfront mannequins must wear the niqab.</p>
<p><strong>Strict Guidelines</strong></p>
<p>In the once smoke-filled cafes where residents would puff on water pipes, discuss the day's events and watch television, Islamic State now permits only sipping tea and viewing religious programs, said a cafe owner.</p>
<p>One man inside a crowded city market said he had been caught smoking a shisha.</p>
<p>“Gunmen from Islamic State arrested me and took me to a cleric who warned me not to repeat this wrong act; otherwise I will be whipped,”&nbsp;he said. “At this point I am resigned to the fact that we should carry arms and fight Islamic State in <a>Falluja</a> or we will end up as their slaves."</p>
<p>Young people who once escaped from <a>Iraq</a>'s tragedies by working out at <a>Falluja</a>'s Golan Sports Hall have watched Islamic State turn it into an auction house which offers furniture, refrigerators and carpets taken from government employees.</p>
<p>But while Islamic State has alienated some people with its methods, the group has also tried to win others over by providing basic services.</p>
<p>Militants driving trucks with Islamic State banners water trees by the roadside. The group employs cleaners to remove garbage from streets with pavements painted to match Islamic State's black and white flags.</p>
<p>In Fallujah, even the subsidized flour at state shops comes in sacks bearing Islamic State's logo.</p>
<p>Aside from their efforts to run <a>Falluja</a> like a state, Islamic State militants see it as a strategic asset in their drive to redraw the map of the <a>Middle East</a>.</p>
<p>U.S. airstrikes, which have failed to slow Islamic State's advance in Anbar, have targeted the area around <a>Falluja</a>.</p>
<p>Islamic State militants have changed their movements to avoid detection, as special security teams in black ski masks search for infiltrators.</p>
<p><img class="float_left" src="http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/54512bdb69beddca40b3357e-1200-500/screen shot 2014-10-29 at 11.25.52 am.png" border="0" alt="Iraq ISIS Fighters">One witness said anyone caught filming is immediately surrounded, arrested and interrogated by Islamic State militants, mostly long-haired men who wear gray <a>Taliban</a>-style outfits, who are senior to men in beige.</p>
<p>Fighters on the frontline wear black.</p>
<p>Witnesses said the militants now travel in ordinary vehicles and motorcycles instead of pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns.</p>
<p>Tanks and armored vehicles seized from defeated Iraqi troops are covered by tree branches and hidden in strategic areas, the witnesses said.</p>
<p>Despite the pressure of U.S. airstrikes launched after Islamic State made fresh advances in recent months and began beheading Western hostages, the Sunni militants seem firmly in control of <a>Falluja</a>.</p>
<p>That means the tailor's dwindling business should keep flourishing. He has bought a second sewing machine.</p>
<p>The suicide outfits are made of tough waterproof material and come in black and beige. There are several kinds: one has chest pockets for explosives while another has pockets along the chest and upper back. The third has pockets hidden in trousers.</p>
<p>All three are piled high on the pavement for lack of space. The militants load the material on to a truck and set off to prepare for the next mission.</p>
<p>"I know that one day I may get arrested by (Iraqi) security forces. But they should know that I am doing this for the sake of my family," said the tailor.</p>
<p>(Editing by Anna Willard and Peter Graff)</p><p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-what-its-like-living-under-isis-rule-in-fallujah-iraq-2014-11#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> http://www.businessinsider.com/yehuda-glick-targeted-in-jerusalem-assassination-attempt-2014-10REPORT: Right-Wing Activist Targeted In Assassination Attempt In Jerusalemhttp://www.businessinsider.com/yehuda-glick-targeted-in-jerusalem-assassination-attempt-2014-10
Wed, 29 Oct 2014 17:18:00 -0400Armin Rosen
<p><img style="float:right;" src="http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/4e1ad69bcadcbb6d62300000-400-279/Screen shot 2011-07-11 at 12.53.38 PM.png" border="0" alt="jerusalem dome of the rock western wall"></p><p>A rabbi who is leading the effort to open up Jerusalem's Temple Mount <strong>— </strong>known to Muslims as the Haram al-Sharif, or the Noble Sancutary<strong>&nbsp;—&nbsp;</strong>to Jewish worshippers has reportedly been shot in Jerusalem. Ha'aretz is reporting that Yehuda Glick was <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/1.623487">shot in the chest</a> after an event at Jerusalem's Menachem Begin Heritage Center.</p>
<p>When reached for comment, Micky Rosenfeld, a detective and spokesperson for Israel's police forces, confirmed "an attempted shooting outside the Begin Center," but would not confirm the victim's identity. He said that the victim, a man in his 50s, is in "serious condition." He added that roadblocks were being set up "all over Jerusalem" to find the shooter or shooters, who escaped by motorbike.</p>
<p>Though Rosenfeld could not confirm the victim's identity, a Twitter user tweeted out a flier for a talk that Glick was to deliver at the Begin Center tonight:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
<p>ככה"נ גליק נורה בסיומה של ההרצאה שמסר בנוגע להר הבית. <a href="http://t.co/NJqP9rBR62">pic.twitter.com/NJqP9rBR62</a></p>
— דוס מחמד ® (@bneibraki) <a href="https://twitter.com/bneibraki/status/527557594286546944">October 29, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async="" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8" type="text/javascript"></script>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Ever since Israel took the Temple Mount from the Jordanian military during the 1967 Middle East War, the country's government has exerted close to an outright ban on organized Jewish prayer there. The area is the former site of the ancient Jewish Temple and is considered the holiest location in the faith; however, many Jews believe that they are actually prohibited from praying or even setting foot there until the Temple's restoration and the coming of a messianic era.</span></p>
<p>To Muslims, the Mount is the Haram al-Sharif — the "Noble Sanctuary," site of Mohammad's ascent to heaven and the third-holiest site in their faith. It is currently home to large Islamic complex that dates to the 7th century, and includes such icons as the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque.</p>
<p>In recent years, right-wing religious nationalist Jews have attempted to assert a Jewish right to worship at the site — and have been met with opposition from their own government, which realizes the issue could inflame the region's sizable Muslim population. The Israelis have <a href="http://www.jewishpress.com/uncategorized/yehuda-glick-barred-from-temple-mount/2014/08/21/">reportedly banned Glick from the Temple Mount.</a></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The attack comes after an unusually tense week in Jerusalem. On October 22, two people were killed when a Hamas-linked individual <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/afp-palestinian-rams-car-into-jerusalem-crowd-killing-baby-2014-10">rammed a car into a light rail station</a> in the city, and there have been <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/palestinian-rioters-holed-up-on-temple-mount/">ongoing clashes</a> in and around the Temple Mount over alleged Israeli limits on Muslim access to the site.</span></p><p><strong>SEE ALSO:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/chickens-gate-is-all-about-iran-2014-10" >"Chickens---gate" is all about Iran</a></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/yehuda-glick-targeted-in-jerusalem-assassination-attempt-2014-10#comments">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p>